Orexis Dianoētikē: ethics and moral philosophy

Showing posts with label ethics and moral philosophy. Show all posts

Apr 15, 2021

Fourteen New Podcast Interviews and Guest Appearances

It's been quite some time since I did a roundup of my recent podcast appearances, so a new curated listing is long overdue!

Since the last post here setting out some recent guest appearances and interviews on a variety of podcasts and shows, I've done quite a few new ones. Something new for me that I've added has been doing guest hosting (both on my own and with other co-hosts) on the Sunday Stoic podcast.

Here are all my new appearances. Give the ones that interest you a listen. I hope you enjoy them!

Interview on The Side View podcast – hosted by Adam Robbert, discussing Pierre Hadot, the idea of philosophy as way of life, academic philosophy, and public philosophy – you can listen here

Interview of the Ta Će On podcast – hosted by Feđa Malinović, discussing how philosophy can be made practical, personal development, what philosophy offers to younger people, and many other topics – you can watch or listen here

Guest Host on the Sunday Stoic Podcast – with Andi Sciacca, discussing Stoicism and its applications within the sphere of romance, relationships, dating, and marriage – you can listen here

Guest Host on the Sunday Stoic Podcast – with Dan Hayes, discussing the importance of dialogue in Stoic philosophy – you can listen here

Interview on the Mastering Midlife podcast – hosted by Mark Silverman, discussing how I got into academic philosophy and then applied it to life issues, philosophical eclecticism, Plutarch as a model philosopher, why brilliance is overrated – you can listen here

Guest Host on the Sunday Stoic Podcast – discussing why reading Stoic texts, in particular classical primary sources, is an important practice for anyone who wants to really understand and progress in Stoicism – you can listen here

Interview on the Modern Stoicism podcast – hosted by Adam Piercey, discussing Modern Stoicism, the Stoicism Today Blog, and grassroots activities in the modern Stoicism movement – you can listen here

Interview on the David Storey podcast – hosted by David Storey, discussing leaving academia, struggles building a new professional identity, becoming the YouTube Philosopher, the simple power of making distinctions in business , and advice for young philosophers considering leaving academia.- you can listen to part 1 here and part 2 here

Interview on the Jason Damico Show – hosted by Jason Damico, discussing a wide range of topics from practical and academic philosophy, teaching in prisons, learning to play bass guitar, all sorts of topics in heavy metal, and how I got started with YouTube – you can watch or listen here

Interview on The Practical Stoic podcast – hosted by Simon Drew, discussing how Stoic philosophy and practices can help us understand, deal with, and reduce anger – you can watch or listen here

Interview on the Stoic Advantage Podcast – hosted by Ryan Racine, discussing how and why Stoicism has undergone a revival of interest over the last several decades, what my favorite Stoic practice is, how Stoicism can be helpful for younger people, and debunking a few myths about Stoicism – you can listen here

Interview on the Stoic Psychologist podcast – hosted by Alex MacLellan, discussing what modern Stoicism is, how people can use Stoic philosophy and practices to improve their lives, how to translate ideas and terms from ancient philosophy into contemporary life, and more – you can listen to part 1 here and to part 2 here

Interview on The Practical Stoic podcast – hosted by Simon Drew, discussing what the core principles of Stoicism are, how we can reinterpret and apply those principles in a modern age, and a number of other Stoicism-related topics – you can listen here

Interview on the Hidden Why podcast – hosted by Leigh Martinuzzi, discussing what practical philosophy is, how philosophy can be used to understand and improve our lives – you can listen here

Apr 9, 2021

Eight Videos On Philosophy As A Way Of Life

This semester, I have been teaching a class at Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design titled "Philosophy, Mindfulness, and Life". "Mindfulness" in that title has a much more broad scope than just contemporary mindfulness movement teachings and techniques. The class is actually much more focused on what has come in recent years to be referred to a "Philosophy as a Way of Life".

That formulation is most closely associated with the French 20th century philosopher Pierre Hadot, but as I've discussed elsewhere, it is a way of understanding and doing philosophy that has been around since antiquity and continued on down to the present, developing through a number of traditions and movements (and Hadot would agree with this).

Earlier in the semester, I created eight new core concept videos specifically on Philosophy as a way of life for my students enrolled in that class. I knew they would also be of interest to a much broader audience, so I'm bringing them all together here in one place.

Five of them are on chapter 3 of Pierre Hadot's book Philosophy As A Way Of Life, entitled "Spiritual Exercises".

Three of them are on John Sellars' excellent article, "What Is Philosophy As A Way Of Life".

I hope you find them useful for understanding this way of understanding and engaging in philosophy!

Apr 1, 2021

Ten Podcast Episodes on Friedrich Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra

The very first book by Nietzsche I read, more than 30 years ago, is Thus Spoke Zarathustra. I'd heard a lot about him from other authors, and I think I remember someone advising me that this was the work to start with, so in my freshman year of college, I bought the copy I still have, and started reading.

Now decades later, it's a work that I teach fairly often, not only in Existentialism classes, but also sometimes in Intro to Philosophy as well. Some time back, I created a series of core concept lecture videos on book 1 of the work. And then, I converted those into Sadler's Lectures podcast episodes, boosting the sound quality and editing them.

Here are those ten podcast episodes:

These links will take you to the episodes on Soundcloud, but you can also listen to Sadler's lectures on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Player FM, iHeart Radio, and plenty of other places online.

My hope is that you find these episodes useful, interesting, or entertaining. As always, if you'd like to make a contribution to helping me continue my work making classic philosophical texts, thinkers, and topics accessible for people worldwide, consider becoming a monthly supporter on Patreon. If you'd like to make a one-time donation, you can do so directly on Paypal, or on Buy Me A Coffee.

Mar 10, 2021

Worlds of Speculative Fiction Session 50 - R. Scott Bakker's The Darkness That Comes Before

This Saturday, we will host the first of our three sessions in the Worlds of Speculative Fiction series focused on R. Scott Bakker's Prince of Nothing trilogy (which is part of his larger Second Apocalypse series). The session will start at Noon Central Time on Saturday, March 13.

As always in covid-19 times, the session is entirely online, and consists of two parts:

At 12 PM Central, the video I produced on The Darkness That Comes Before will premiere in my YouTube channel. I'll be engaging in live chat with viewers as they watch and listen to the video. Here's the link for that.
At 1:40 PM Central, viewers who are interested are invited to hop on to a Zoom session to continue the conversation about this great book and the series. Here's the link for that.

We'll be continuing on the next two months with the second and third book in the series, The Warrior Prophet and The Thousandfold Thought. If you're a fan of this eminently philosophical fantasy writer and worldbuilder, I hope you can join us for these sessions!

Feb 16, 2021

Twelve Podcast Episodes on Cicero's On Friendship

One of the texts I started teaching in my classes years ago is On Friendship by the great Roman philosopher and statesman, Marcus Tullius Cicero. I find ways to work reading and discussion of this short but rich book into my Ethics, Introduction to Philosophy, and Philosophy of Love and Friendship classes. I've been surprised by how much students in the 21st century respond to the work - they find a lot of value in its treatment of the topics.

Cicero of course draws upon some ideas and insights derived from Aristotle's own treatment of the topics involved in friendships and relationships, found in his Nicomachean and Eudemian Ethics. But On Friendship isn't just adding to Aristotle a few centuries afterwards. It is a thoughtful, incisive examination of a number of important issues arising out of friendships.

A while back, I shot a sequence of lecture videos on this work, and more recently, I edited them into a set of episodes in the Sadler's Lectures podcast. There are twelve of them, covering all of the key ideas of the work in depth and detail. Here's links to each of these podcast episodes

I hope you find these episodes useful and interesting. As always, if you'd like to make a contribution to helping me continue my work making classic philosophical texts, thinkers, and topics accessible for people worldwide, consider becoming a monthly supporter on Patreon. If you'd like to make a one-time donation, you can do so directly on Paypal, or on Buy Me A Coffee.

Jan 10, 2021

Ten Podcast Episodes on John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism

One text that I teach frequently in my classes is John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism. Years back, I produced a set of short core concept lecture videos covering the main ideas Mill sets out in that short but important work. My students have been using them for quite some time, but they are just a fraction of the viewers that have watched those videos in order to better understand the text.

Last year, I added a new set of resources on this text, taking the lecture videos and converting them into podcast episodes in my Sadler's Lectures channel, boosting the sound quality, and editing out all of the longer pauses and filler words.

Here are those ten podcast episodes on Mill's Utilitarianism. All told, they run for about 2 1/2 hours:

If you'd like to make a contribution to helping me continue my work making classic philosophical texts, thinkers, and topics accessible for people worldwide, consider becoming a monthly supporter on Patreon. If you'd like to make a one-time donation, you can do so directly on Paypal, or on Buy Me A Coffee.

Jan 9, 2021

Year Six Of Worlds of Speculative Fiction Begins Today!

We announced the lineup for the Worlds of Speculative Fiction monthly series this year a bit earlier in the week. You can see the full schedule here, if you'd like to. Today, we kick year six of the series off with our session on the Chinese science fiction author, Liu Cixin!

We start at Noon Central Time with my discussion of Liu Cixin's Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy of novels. That will take place as a video premiere on my YouTube channel, and we'll be engaging in live chat on that video page. So you can watch, ask questions, make comments, and I'll reply as the video runs.

Then immediately following - around 1:40 PM Central Time - those who want to have a more intimate, in-depth conversation about the texts, the writer, the ideas, and the key themes will shift over to Zoom for a videoconferencing session.

Here are the links for those two parts of the event:

The trilogy we'll be focusing upon are:

I look forward to seeing you there and to some excellent conversation about this author and this excellent series of works!

Dec 31, 2020

Eight Podcast Episodes on Epicurus' Principal Doctrines and Letters

Epicurus is one of the thinkers whose works I teach fairly often. Most of my Introduction to Philosophy classes will include a day or two devoted to Epicurus and Epicureanism, and in one of the classes I'm teaching next semester, Philosophy, Mindfulness, and Life, we will be spending about two weeks on the Epicurean tradition.

Quite a while back, I produced a series of lecture videos on Epicurus' main ideas (you can check out the playlist here), and over the last year and a half, I've been taking those shorter lecture videos, converting them to sound files, editing them and fixing the sound (as best as I can), and then producing them as podcast episodes.

They really do double duty. I use them in my academic classes as additional resources for my students. They can download and listen to high-quality, well-informed lectures on the texts and thinkers they are studying, anywhere they'd like to. I also make them available as resources for the general public as well, and listeners do seem to enjoy them and find them useful.

So, here's that set of podcast episodes on Epicurus. All told, they run about 1 hour and 40 minutes, so a person could listen their way through the entire set in the space of a a longish workout or walk, or while traveling.

Aug 11, 2020

Ten Videos on Seneca's Letters

Earlier this summer, I created seven new core concept videos on a selection of letters from the great Stoic philosopher Seneca, in which he ranges over a number of key topics, not just in Stoic, but also Aristotelian, Platonic, and other philosophical traditions. Each video focuses on one of the Letters on Ethics: To Lucilius.

Adding these to the three I had produced previously for my Intro to Philosophy students, the sequence now covers a number of key topics, distinctions, and arguments in metaphysics and ethics. Here is the set so far:

I will likely start shooting additional videos on Seneca's Letters later on this Fall.

Jul 17, 2020

Three Podcast Episodes on Lawrence Kohlberg and Moral Development

One of the thinkers whose work I teach in my Ethics classes is the psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg. I tend to assign his essay "Moral Development: A Review of the Theory," which provides a good overview of his six stages of moral development, and also discusses its applications to and implications for K-12 education. Some time back, I shot a sequence of three core concept videos covering the main ideas of the piece.

Recently, in order to provide the same lecture material to my students in another format, I edited the sound files from those videos into Sadler's Lectures podcast episodes. I boost the sound quality where possible, and take out all of the"ums", "ahs", and other such filler, so that listeners get an improved lecture.

If you'd like to listen to or download these episodes, you can do so in a variety of places - Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Player FM, as well as other sites - but the best place to do so is on my Soundcloud. Here's those three episodes:

All told, they come to a bit more than 40 minutes total playing time, so you can learn the basics about Kohlberg's moral development theory in the space of a commute, a walk, or a workout!

Mar 6, 2020

Wisdom For Life Radio Show - Questions and Suggestions

Our first episode of the Wisdom for Life radio show aired last Friday evening on Riverwest Radio - WXRW 104.1 FM - here in Milwaukee. My co-host, Dan Hayes, and I go live every other Friday from 5 to 6 PM, discussing philosophy and its applications to challenges, problems, and issues of everyday life.

The first show went pretty well - not perfect, of course, but that's part of the fun of live radio! We introduced the main idea of the show and ourselves as hosts, then shifted into discussing what philosophy as a way of life is and how it differs from the academic philosophy one might encounter in textbooks or classes. We also introduced the idea of philosophical practices, and at the end of show introduced one drawn primarily from Stoicism - negative visualisation. Between those two segments, we also looked at a real-life problem about how to make and maintain healthy boundaries.

If you missed the show and would like to give it a listen - or if you were one of the people who tuned in live worldwide, and would like to hear it again - here's two places you can do so:

Riverwest Radio's archived recording of the show - listen here
My YouTube channel video - added bonus - you can listen or watch here

I've no doubt that the show is going to evolve over time, but for now, we're planning on sticking to the format we've got so far

a bit of banter at the start
a half-hour of back and forth discussion of some key topics
roughly ten minutes of in-depth examination of a common problem
another ten minutes or so about a philosophical practice and how to use it
signing off

Dan and I are meeting today to go over the first episode and think about what else we might want to talk about or do on the show - and how to improve bits of it - so here's my two invitations to you:

If you've listened to the show, and have suggestions about what you'd like to see in upcoming episodes, go ahead and send them to me.
Whether you've listened to the show or not, if you've got a problem, challenge, or issue in your life, and you'd like to see what philosophy might contribute to dealing with it, send me that as well, and we might discuss it on the air

You can send suggestions or questions to me in Twitter, on my Facebook page, or by email.

Feb 19, 2020

Wisdom for Life Radio Show Coming Up - Questions Welcome!

In the last few years, I've done ethics consulting work and a number of guest appearances with a local radio station, WXRW-Riverwest Radio. This is a community radio station, so there's a considerably wider variety of shows than on most other radio stations and networks. They've been asking for some time whether I'd be interested in producing a philosophy-focused show for the station. And starting at the end of the month, that is going to be the case!

The new show is called Wisdom for Life, and will be focused on how insights and practices derived from philosophy can help people understand and deal with problems and issues arising in the course of life. One of my fellow co-organizers of the Milwaukee Stoic Fellowship, Dan Hayes, is also the co-producer of this show. We did a 2-hour special fundraising show for Riverwest Radio, focused on generosity and giving, back in December. And earlier this month, we completed our training at the station. So we are now ready to go on the air live!

The show will run every other Friday from 5-6 PM Central Time, starting on February 28. If there's sufficient interest, and if Dan and I manage to find the available time in our schedules, we'll consider turning it into a weekly show. There's certainly enough topics available that we'll never run out of material to discuss.

In the very first episode, we'll introduce ourselves and briefly present the broad outlines of what the show is about. We'll also devote a good bit of discussion to how it is that philosophy - which many people encounter as an abstract subject, rather detached from everyday life - turns out to have a lot to contribute to thinking about our lives. And, by practical applications, to living better lives as well.

We're also planning for each show to have a segment during which we'll tackle questions coming from listeners. We can't do call-in on-air, so we'll take questions provided to us prior to the show, and then try to work out some decent answers to them. You can send them to me by email, in Twitter, or on the Facebook event page for the episode.

Jan 29, 2020

Ten Videos on A.J. Ayer's Language, Truth, and Logic

One of the texts I teach regularly in my Intro to Philosophy and Ethics classes is A.J. Ayer's classic text of logical empiricism, Language, Truth, and Logic. Last semester, I finally got around to creating a set of lecture videos on chapters 1 and 6 of the work as aids for my students.

These might be of interest or use to other people as well, as they tackle reading through the work. So, here are links to those videos:

A.J. Ayer, Language, Truth, and Logic, ch. 1

A.J. Ayer, Language, Truth, and Logic, ch. 6

Nov 9, 2019

Six Podcast Episodes on Jean-Paul Sartre's Existentialism Is a Humanism

One text I teach frequently is Jean-Paul Sartre's succinct summary of his version of Existentialism, his popular lecture "Existentialism is a Humanism". Over the summer, I took the six lecture videos I created for my students, and turned them into downloadable podcast episodes.

So anywhere you can listen to mp3s, you can learn about Sartre's classic explanation of what Existentialism is, what it means to live as an Existentialist, and the scope of human freedom.

Here are those six episodes - about an hour and a half total of podcast:

To listen to more podcast episodes - so far on Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Epictetus, and Kierkegaard (with many other thinkers and works yet to come) - you can go to my Soundcloud channel, or find them on iTunes or GooglePlay.

Oct 23, 2019

Stoicon-X Milwaukee - Videos and Pictures from the Event

On Saturday, October 12 - during International Stoic Week - we held a Stoicon-X event for the Midwest here in Milwaukee. The day began with a short welcome and an overview about Stoic philosophy and the modern Stoic movement. Then we had our three featured speakers - Kevin Vost, Dan Hayes, and Daniel Collette - giving a set of talks ranging over a wide variety of topics related to Stoic philosophy and practice.

Daniel's talk was interrupted by a fire alarm that cut about 30 minutes out of our scheduled time, but we got back on track by shortening the catered lunch, and then resuming Daniel's talk. After that, five audience members gave short 3-5 minute "lightning round" talks. We finished the event with a workshop - "The Stoic Heart" - on Stoicism and partnered relationships, given by my wife Andi and myself.

We got together for a shot of all five of us at the end of the conference

We also got good video footage of all of the talks from Stoicon-X, with the exception of the lightning round talks. For those who couldn't make it to the event, and would like to get to see and hear what participants did, here they are:

I'd like once again to thank our patron (who wishes to remain anonymous) for generously underwriting this event, and allowing us to offer it to participants for free.

Oct 9, 2019

Five Videos on Thomas Aquinas on Happiness

I created another set of short lecture videos for my students, enrolled in my Introduction to Philosophy and my Foundations in Philosophy classes, focused on a key discussion by Thomas Aquinas in question 2 of the First Part of the Second Part of his Summa Theologiae. It is often called the "treatise on happiness", and that is the focus of those discussions. What is the nature of human happiness? What - among the things that people think will make them happy - really does make human beings happy?

Here are those five videos, which I released early to my Patreon supporters last month:

Aug 11, 2019

Seven Videos on Gabriel Marcel's On The Ontological Mystery

Earlier this summer, I created a number of new core concept videos as resources for my students enrolled in my online Existentialist Philosophy and Literature (taught for Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design). This opened up an opportunity to shoot a sequence on one of my favorite works of the often overlooked French Catholic Existentialist, Gabriel Marcel, his essay "Concrete Approaches to Investigating the Ontological Mystery" (which you can find here, along with his play, The Broken World)

The reason I selected that essay (and provided that play as a supplemental reading) for the class is that it is probably the best introduction not only to some of the central themes of Marcel's philosophy - the distinction between problem and mystery, the dangers of a functionalized world, reinterpretation of faith, hope, and charity, and the need for ontological depth - but also to Marcel himself. It is an essay he references frequently throughout his other works.

Marcel was one of the first authors to use the term "existentialist" and "existentialism" in French. He would later abandon the title for his own work after Jean-Paul Sartre more or less took it over in his "Existentialism is a Humanism" (as would Heidegger), but Marcel remains a central figure within the broad Existentialist movement.

In any case, here are those seven videos. I plan to shoot some additional ones on this work, hopefully later on this Fall.

Jul 8, 2019

Three Videos on David Hume's Treatise of Human Nature

I teach David Hume's works from time to time. In fact, he made his way into my classes quite early on in my career. My very first Ethics classes included some portions of his Treatise of Human Nature, and the first time I taught Intro to Philosophy his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding was a required text.

I incorporated that Enquiry into my Foundations of Philosophy sections (at Marquette University) and my Intro to Philosophy class (at Milwaukee Area Technical College) this last semester, but - alas! - couldn't carve out the time to shoot footage for the core concept videos I'd wanted to produce on that text. I did, however, manage to shoot a bit of material on the Treatise for my online Ethics class at MATC this summer.

One of Hume's most famous passages is where he claims:

We speak not strictly and philosophically when we talk of the combat of passion and of reason. Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.

That is from book 2 of the Treatise, part 3, section 3, and it fit in quite well to the section on non-cognitivism and emotivism in my class. So I decided it was about time I created some Hume content for my students. Later this summer, I'm planning on shooting some additional videos on the Enquiry as well.

In any case, here are those three videos:

I hope you find them interesting and useful!

Jun 14, 2019

Ten Videos on Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Earlier this spring, as the semester was coming to a close, and I was getting ready for my online 6-week Existentialist Philosophy and Literature class (developed and taught for the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, now in its 5th week), I shot a sequence of new lecture videos on a classic and extremely influential Existentialist work.

It's one that my subscribers, viewers, followers, and other fans have been asking me to produce videos about for years - Friedrich Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra! I decided to make part one of that book a required reading for the online class (with the Genealogy of Morals a supplemental text)

I've just finished releasing all of those videos, so I thought I'd set links to them all in one place. Here are those videos:

May 30, 2019

Six Lecture Videos on Rainer Maria Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet

My 6-week online course on Existentialist Philosophy and Literature, developed and taught for Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, is well underway. They're in the middle of Week 3, and just finishing up with a module on Rainer Maria Rilke's works and thought.

I've assigned to them as a required text his Letters to a Young Poet, and as a supplementary text his novel The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge. I have also provided them quite a few resources to help them as they study these works. These include core concept lecture videos, which I have recently shot on the first text (I have an older, longer lecture video on the Notebooks as well).

These may be useful for you, if you're going to dig into Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet. So here they are - those six new videos:

If you find the philosophy resources I develop interesting, enjoyable, or useful, by all means share them with others. And if you'd like to support the work that I do, making philosophy publicly accessible, you can become a monthly supporter on my Patreon page, or if you prefer a one-time donation, you can Buy Me A Coffee!