Sadler's Lectures

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century philosopher and novelist William Gass' article "The Case Of The Obliging Stranger", which begins with a case that runs: "Imagine I approach a stranger on the street and say to him, "If you please, sir, I desire to perform an experiment with your aid." The stranger is obliging, and I lead him away. In a dark place conveniently by, I strike his head with the broad of an axe and cart him home. I place him, buttered and trussed, in an ample electric oven. The thermostat reads 4500 F. Thereupon I go off to play poker with friends and forget all about the obliging stranger in the stove. When I return, I realize I have overbaked my specimen, and the experiment, alas, is ruined.

Something has been done wrong. Or something wrong has been done"

It focuses specifically on the applicability of moral theories and principles to deciding cases, whether clear or unclear, in our moral decision-making. Gass' view is that both are less useful than ethicists and even some ordinary people make them out to be.

To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - www.patreon.com/sadler

If you'd like to make a direct contribution, you can do so here - www.paypal.me/ReasonIO - or at BuyMeACoffee - www.buymeacoffee.com/A4quYdWoM

You can find over 3500 philosophy videos in my main YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/user/gbisadler

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century philosopher and novelist William Gass' article "The Case Of The Obliging Stranger", which begins with a case that runs: "Imagine I approach a stranger on the street and say to him, "If you please, sir, I desire to perform an experiment with your aid." The stranger is obliging, and I lead him away. In a dark place conveniently by, I strike his head with the broad of an axe and cart him home. I place him, buttered and trussed, in an ample electric oven. The thermostat reads 4500 F. Thereupon I go off to play poker with friends and forget all about the obliging stranger in the stove. When I return, I realize I have overbaked my specimen, and the experiment, alas, is ruined.

Something has been done wrong. Or something wrong has been done"

It focuses specifically on his distinction between what he terms "clear cases" and "unclear cases". With clear cases, like that of the obliging stranger, their rightness or wrongness, goodness or badness should be clear to anyone looking at them, and we don't need moral theories in order to make those judgements. With unclear cases, we have differing ways to try to make them more clear, but surprisingly, according to Gass, moral theories turn out not to be helpful in the ways that we expect them to in those cases either.

To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - www.patreon.com/sadler

If you'd like to make a direct contribution, you can do so here - www.paypal.me/ReasonIO - or at BuyMeACoffee - www.buymeacoffee.com/A4quYdWoM

You can find over 3500 philosophy videos in my main YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/user/gbisadler

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century philosopher and novelist William Gass' article "The Case Of The Obliging Stranger", which begins with a case that runs: "Imagine I approach a stranger on the street and say to him, "If you please, sir, I desire to perform an experiment with your aid." The stranger is obliging, and I lead him away. In a dark place conveniently by, I strike his head with the broad of an axe and cart him home. I place him, buttered and trussed, in an ample electric oven. The thermostat reads 4500 F. Thereupon I go off to play poker with friends and forget all about the obliging stranger in the stove. When I return, I realize I have overbaked my specimen, and the experiment, alas, is ruined.

Something has been done wrong. Or something wrong has been done"

It focuses specifically on Gass' contentions that moral theories and moral philosophers who don't condemn what was done to the stranger are vicious, and that the wrong is not really clarified well by introducing moral theories and principles. He examines several different ways that people develop, articulate, and argue for their moral theories, and notes that they aren't entirely off-base or useless, but that they often get in the way with what he calls "clear cases".

To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - www.patreon.com/sadler

If you'd like to make a direct contribution, you can do so here - www.paypal.me/ReasonIO - or at BuyMeACoffee - www.buymeacoffee.com/A4quYdWoM

You can find over 3500 philosophy videos in my main YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/user/gbisadler

This lecture discusses the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle' work, On Interpretation, focusing on his discussion near the end of the work bearing on what the contraries of affirmative, generally universal, proposition, actually are, since this is an issue that people often get confused over. Aristotle will resolve this partly by considering in propositions what is the case by essence (kath'heato), or accidentally (kata sumbebēkos).

To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - www.patreon.com/sadler

If you'd like to make a direct contribution, you can do so here - www.paypal.me/ReasonIO

You can find over 4,000 philosophy videos in my main YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/user/gbisadler

Purchase Aristotle's On Interpretation - amzn.to/3nS55ud

This lecture discusses the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle' work, On Interpretation, focusing on his discussion of different ways in which something can be potential (dunamis) or possible (dunaton), terms that have multiple senses and are thus ambiguous. He distinguishes between rational and irrational possibilities, a difference which gets used by many later authors. He clarifies ways that potentiality or possibilities can be related to the actual or things in activity, and to what is necessary as well.

To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - www.patreon.com/sadler

If you'd like to make a direct contribution, you can do so here - www.paypal.me/ReasonIO

You can find over 4,000 philosophy videos in my main YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/user/gbisadler

Purchase Aristotle's On Interpretation - amzn.to/3nS55ud

This lecture discusses the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle' work, On Interpretation, focusing on his discussion of modal propositions that include or reference necessity. He notes that there is an inverse relation between necessity and impossibility, that with necessity, contraries follow upon contradictories, and that possibility follows from necessity but not the converse.

To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - www.patreon.com/sadler

If you'd like to make a direct contribution, you can do so here - www.paypal.me/ReasonIO

You can find over 4,000 philosophy videos in my main YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/user/gbisadler

Purchase Aristotle's On Interpretation - amzn.to/3nS55ud

This lecture discusses the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle' work, On Interpretation, focusing on his discussion of what the implications of modal propositions are, that is, propositions that bear upon possibility, contingency, impossibility, and necessity. He identifies propositions of these sorts that imply each other.

To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - www.patreon.com/sadler

If you'd like to make a direct contribution, you can do so here - www.paypal.me/ReasonIO

You can find over 4,000 philosophy videos in my main YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/user/gbisadler

Purchase Aristotle's On Interpretation - amzn.to/3nS55ud

William Clifford, The Ethics Of Belief - The Limits Of Inference by Lectures on classic and contemporary philosophical texts and thinkers by Gregory B. Sadler

This lecture discusses the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle' work, On Interpretation, focusing on his discussion of modal terms such as possible (dunaton), contingent (endekhomenon), impossible (adunaton), and necessary (anankhaion) as they are used in propositions, where affirmations or negations possess truth or falsity. He also discusses what real and mistaken contradictions of these types of propositions are.

To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - www.patreon.com/sadler

If you'd like to make a direct contribution, you can do so here - www.paypal.me/ReasonIO

You can find over 4,000 philosophy videos in my main YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/user/gbisadler

Purchase Aristotle's On Interpretation - amzn.to/3nS55ud

This lecture discusses the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle' work, On Interpretation, focusing on his discussion bearing on whether and when it is possible to combine multiple predicates into one predicate for a given subject in propositions. As it turns out, in some cases this is possible, but in many other cases starting with true propositions leads to a false proposition when the predicates are combined

To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - www.patreon.com/sadler

If you'd like to make a direct contribution, you can do so here - www.paypal.me/ReasonIO

You can find over 4,000 philosophy videos in my main YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/user/gbisadler

Purchase Aristotle's On Interpretation - amzn.to/3nS55ud