5 ms·

A Philosophy Professor's Final Class (2023)

118 points by dotcoma 2y ago

voisin 2y ago
http://archive.today/KSoMH http://archive.today/KSoMH
voisin 2y ago
(2023)
throw0101d 2y ago
Discussion at the time: * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34270650 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34270650
erulabs 2y ago
Somewhat related, I fell in love with a pretty obscure philosophy lecturer who uploaded his old Princeton lecture series to YouTube, dr Micheal Segrue. Genuinely the best overview of various philosophers I’ve ever seen. Highly recommended. I left a comment on a video with 4K views and he liked it. Two weeks later a message was posted on his channel by his daughter that he had passed away. We need to listen to old folks a bit more than we do. The latest isn’t always the greatest.
- ImPleadThe5th 2y ago
  Do you have a link per chance?
  - erulabs 2y ago
    https://youtu.be/Rc0K4WhNOvY https://youtu.be/Rc0K4WhNOvY Enjoy!
- theF00l 2y ago
  Michael Sugrue was exceptional and I am grateful to have watched his lectures. His lecture on Marcus Aurelius has the most views on YT. I also recommend his lectures on Nietzsche and Sartre/Heidegger.
- jorgesborges 2y ago
  I knew that would be part of the old teaching company videos! I'll definitely give them a watch thanks for sharing. Finding those videos as a teenager inspired my interest in philosophy and it's what I eventually studied in university. They had such incredible content. The company was rebranded as Wodrium and it's good but they pivoted to more popular, consumable content and it's less rigorous in my opinion. Other great philosophy courses from that era: Robert C. Solomon on Nietzsche https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfiUrZFEZfI&list=PLdnXkNG3FrNMr_rUXKRsg2sNXiFBNASuP https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfiUrZFEZfI&list=PLdnXkNG3Fr... Rick Roderick on the Post Modern Condition https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjFiU9nDQD4&list=PLA20B690583E9931C https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjFiU9nDQD4&list=PLA20B69058...
  - jt_b 2y ago
    Thanks for this reminder. The Robert Solomon scene in Waking Life re: Sartre had a profound impact upon upon me as a teenager and spurred my interest in Kierkegaard, but it has been several years since I have considered him. Great to see that many of his lectures are available online.
    - jzemeocala 2y ago
      Now there's a movie I haven't though about in a decade.
- mrtransient 2y ago
  Thank you for spending time to share it!
- endorphine 2y ago
  I discovered him 6 months ago and watched most of his lectures. Truly a gem of a channel!
- Locutus_ 2y ago
  Indeed, his lectures are a great startoff point and presented as such but often his personal opinions and philosophical narrative runs through a bit roughly. I get the feeling he is deeply Christian and mostly looks at the history of western philosophy as the project to build the modern Christian Enlightenment and how most (to him) valuable Post-Enlightenment philosophy is fundamentally based in processing biblical scripturally derived strands of thought through a dechristianization processes. This might sound like a harsh criticism, it's not entirely meant to be. His introduction course is definitely worth it!
- otteromkram 2y ago
  > We need to listen to old folks a bit more than we do. Not all old folks are quite the same. You could make a similar argument for young people. For example: Trump is (probably) older than you. Are you going to listen to whatever he says?
  - marshray 2y ago
    The statement was "... a bit more than we do". You chose to refute a general notion about people with a single, extreme, counterexample. But this isn't mathematical logic.
  - dambi0 2y ago
    Do you think the comment should be interpreted to mean we should listen to everything all older people say?
- gofreddygo 2y ago
  Michael Sugrue's you tube channel [1] has some of the best introductions to philosophy. His ability to articulate such complex concepts and lay them out logically and connect them is like magic. True performance from a master! RIP [1]: https://youtube.com/@dr.michaelsugrue https://youtube.com/@dr.michaelsugrue
- alexashka 2y ago
  For folks who lean more Republican - there's also an excellent series of lectures by Rick Roderick on youtube. Just be aware that these people have failed to produce any original philosophical thought of their own - they are philosophy historians, rather than philosophers.
  - ngcc_hk 2y ago
    Original thinker might be bad for historical summary as they might try first to sell their own …
ViktorRay 2y ago
I feel like philosophers were better before social media and the internet. Nowadays people like this philosopher would have gotten sucked into the time vortex of Twitter, Mastadon, Reddit, etc and wasted their lives away. But back then they spent all their time in libraries actually reading important stuff. Much better for the brain and intellectual development. Not just the brain development of children but adults too
- theF00l 2y ago
  I completely understand your point but would like to point out that quite a few philosophers were peculiar characters that did spent a lot of time outside the library too. Sometimes debating (eg Athenians), sometimes political activities (eg Sartre), some spending time on theology too (Kierkegaard, Aquinas). I think for many philosophy was a way to understand life and the world around them.
- mistermann 2y ago
  Engaging in philosophy only alone (or only with like minded, agreeable people who will circle the wagons if someone dares to take things actually seriously) is a tragic waste of immense power. No wonder it gets so little respect, or attention. Philosophy can be applied, but it takes brass balls.
  - Locutus_ 2y ago
    As Karl Marx said about philosophy: "The point, however, is to change it [The world]"
    - mistermann 2y ago
      I wonder if Karl's fairly extremist (at least in reputation, which is all that matters) ideology harmed the popularity of this discrete proposal.
    - prewett 2y ago
      Change is not always for the better. Vladimar Putin is changing the world, but expect that few here see it as a good thing. Putin, himself, is known to see Soviet Russia as good; the USSR also changed the world, but it is hard for many to see that as good, particularly the millions killed by the rulers. The USSR was a product of Marxist thought, and thus far no implementation of Marxism has been anything but highly destructive. (Regarding China, it's success came when they embraced aspects of capitalism and technocratic governance. Xi is turning back towards Marxism and China appears to be going backwards.) Other philosophy would consider Marx as incorrect. For Plato, the point of philosophy is to find the Good, the Beautiful, and the True. For Buddhists (if I understand correctly), the point is to escape suffering. For Christians, the point is the mystical union with Christ. For these, effects on the world are a side-effect, not the point. Personally, I think that the preoccupation with "changing the world" in the contemporary US is a search for personal meaning (via activism, or even merely "change"), since the ideas of modernity has erase all meaning from our existence.
twoslide 2y ago
In addition to a touching personal tribute, this article also illustrates the jobs crisis for PhD graduates. Someone who started his career in the 1950s works into his eighties, teaching from hospital, and dies less than a week after retiring. This is not a good model, and a good argument for mandatory retirement ages.
- erulabs 2y ago
  It’s only a bad model if he didn’t love what he did for a living. Otherwise I find it quite inspiring.
  - alexashka 2y ago
    Define 'bad'. You're an emotivist by the way.
twoWhlsGud 2y ago
Thanks for posting that - great read. And reading it took me back when I was lucky enough to take Richard Rorty's class (entitled something like Philosopy from Kant to 1900) my freshman year at Princeton. I remember the impact of his lectures about James and pragmaticism - I was a bit of a smart alek - convinced that there was only one right way of looking at the world and I (of course! :) knew what it was. James' Pragmatism and his concept of the cash value of ideas - the idea that you could ask how thinking and believing about the world in some particular way might be valuable to someone (in particular) as a part of measuring its "objective" value (it was a long time ago and I may be not giving a fully accurate report here of what James/Rorty actually said) had a big impact on me. Rorty left the Philosophy department (for Virginia, I think) pretty soon after that class - due to the kind of disagreement between the analytical philosophers and him rumored to be at the root of the Bernstein/Yale break (Rorty didn't believe that logic was the core of philosophy). And Rorty was a gifted lecturer with an extremely dry sense of humor. I think I laughed more often in that class than in any other that was to follow.

118 points by dotcoma 2y ago

voisin 2y ago

http://archive.today/KSoMH http://archive.today/KSoMH

voisin 2y ago

(2023)

throw0101d 2y ago

Discussion at the time: * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34270650 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34270650

erulabs 2y ago

Somewhat related, I fell in love with a pretty obscure philosophy lecturer who uploaded his old Princeton lecture series to YouTube, dr Micheal Segrue. Genuinely the best overview of various philosophers I’ve ever seen. Highly recommended. I left a comment on a video with 4K views and he liked it. Two weeks later a message was posted on his channel by his daughter that he had passed away. We need to listen to old folks a bit more than we do. The latest isn’t always the greatest.

ImPleadThe5th 2y ago
Do you have a link per chance?
- erulabs 2y ago
  https://youtu.be/Rc0K4WhNOvY https://youtu.be/Rc0K4WhNOvY Enjoy!
theF00l 2y ago
Michael Sugrue was exceptional and I am grateful to have watched his lectures. His lecture on Marcus Aurelius has the most views on YT. I also recommend his lectures on Nietzsche and Sartre/Heidegger.
jorgesborges 2y ago
I knew that would be part of the old teaching company videos! I'll definitely give them a watch thanks for sharing. Finding those videos as a teenager inspired my interest in philosophy and it's what I eventually studied in university. They had such incredible content. The company was rebranded as Wodrium and it's good but they pivoted to more popular, consumable content and it's less rigorous in my opinion. Other great philosophy courses from that era: Robert C. Solomon on Nietzsche https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfiUrZFEZfI&list=PLdnXkNG3FrNMr_rUXKRsg2sNXiFBNASuP https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfiUrZFEZfI&list=PLdnXkNG3Fr... Rick Roderick on the Post Modern Condition https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjFiU9nDQD4&list=PLA20B690583E9931C https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjFiU9nDQD4&list=PLA20B69058...
- jt_b 2y ago
  Thanks for this reminder. The Robert Solomon scene in Waking Life re: Sartre had a profound impact upon upon me as a teenager and spurred my interest in Kierkegaard, but it has been several years since I have considered him. Great to see that many of his lectures are available online.
  - jzemeocala 2y ago
    Now there's a movie I haven't though about in a decade.
mrtransient 2y ago
Thank you for spending time to share it!
endorphine 2y ago
I discovered him 6 months ago and watched most of his lectures. Truly a gem of a channel!
Locutus_ 2y ago
Indeed, his lectures are a great startoff point and presented as such but often his personal opinions and philosophical narrative runs through a bit roughly. I get the feeling he is deeply Christian and mostly looks at the history of western philosophy as the project to build the modern Christian Enlightenment and how most (to him) valuable Post-Enlightenment philosophy is fundamentally based in processing biblical scripturally derived strands of thought through a dechristianization processes. This might sound like a harsh criticism, it's not entirely meant to be. His introduction course is definitely worth it!
otteromkram 2y ago
> We need to listen to old folks a bit more than we do. Not all old folks are quite the same. You could make a similar argument for young people. For example: Trump is (probably) older than you. Are you going to listen to whatever he says?
- marshray 2y ago
  The statement was "... a bit more than we do". You chose to refute a general notion about people with a single, extreme, counterexample. But this isn't mathematical logic.
- dambi0 2y ago
  Do you think the comment should be interpreted to mean we should listen to everything all older people say?
gofreddygo 2y ago
Michael Sugrue's you tube channel [1] has some of the best introductions to philosophy. His ability to articulate such complex concepts and lay them out logically and connect them is like magic. True performance from a master! RIP [1]: https://youtube.com/@dr.michaelsugrue https://youtube.com/@dr.michaelsugrue
alexashka 2y ago
For folks who lean more Republican - there's also an excellent series of lectures by Rick Roderick on youtube. Just be aware that these people have failed to produce any original philosophical thought of their own - they are philosophy historians, rather than philosophers.
- ngcc_hk 2y ago
  Original thinker might be bad for historical summary as they might try first to sell their own …

ViktorRay 2y ago

I feel like philosophers were better before social media and the internet. Nowadays people like this philosopher would have gotten sucked into the time vortex of Twitter, Mastadon, Reddit, etc and wasted their lives away. But back then they spent all their time in libraries actually reading important stuff. Much better for the brain and intellectual development. Not just the brain development of children but adults too

theF00l 2y ago
I completely understand your point but would like to point out that quite a few philosophers were peculiar characters that did spent a lot of time outside the library too. Sometimes debating (eg Athenians), sometimes political activities (eg Sartre), some spending time on theology too (Kierkegaard, Aquinas). I think for many philosophy was a way to understand life and the world around them.
mistermann 2y ago
Engaging in philosophy only alone (or only with like minded, agreeable people who will circle the wagons if someone dares to take things actually seriously) is a tragic waste of immense power. No wonder it gets so little respect, or attention. Philosophy can be applied, but it takes brass balls.
- Locutus_ 2y ago
  As Karl Marx said about philosophy: "The point, however, is to change it [The world]"
  - mistermann 2y ago
    I wonder if Karl's fairly extremist (at least in reputation, which is all that matters) ideology harmed the popularity of this discrete proposal.
  - prewett 2y ago
    Change is not always for the better. Vladimar Putin is changing the world, but expect that few here see it as a good thing. Putin, himself, is known to see Soviet Russia as good; the USSR also changed the world, but it is hard for many to see that as good, particularly the millions killed by the rulers. The USSR was a product of Marxist thought, and thus far no implementation of Marxism has been anything but highly destructive. (Regarding China, it's success came when they embraced aspects of capitalism and technocratic governance. Xi is turning back towards Marxism and China appears to be going backwards.) Other philosophy would consider Marx as incorrect. For Plato, the point of philosophy is to find the Good, the Beautiful, and the True. For Buddhists (if I understand correctly), the point is to escape suffering. For Christians, the point is the mystical union with Christ. For these, effects on the world are a side-effect, not the point. Personally, I think that the preoccupation with "changing the world" in the contemporary US is a search for personal meaning (via activism, or even merely "change"), since the ideas of modernity has erase all meaning from our existence.

twoslide 2y ago

In addition to a touching personal tribute, this article also illustrates the jobs crisis for PhD graduates. Someone who started his career in the 1950s works into his eighties, teaching from hospital, and dies less than a week after retiring. This is not a good model, and a good argument for mandatory retirement ages.

erulabs 2y ago
It’s only a bad model if he didn’t love what he did for a living. Otherwise I find it quite inspiring.
- alexashka 2y ago
  Define 'bad'. You're an emotivist by the way.

twoWhlsGud 2y ago

Thanks for posting that - great read. And reading it took me back when I was lucky enough to take Richard Rorty's class (entitled something like Philosopy from Kant to 1900) my freshman year at Princeton. I remember the impact of his lectures about James and pragmaticism - I was a bit of a smart alek - convinced that there was only one right way of looking at the world and I (of course! :) knew what it was. James' Pragmatism and his concept of the cash value of ideas - the idea that you could ask how thinking and believing about the world in some particular way might be valuable to someone (in particular) as a part of measuring its "objective" value (it was a long time ago and I may be not giving a fully accurate report here of what James/Rorty actually said) had a big impact on me. Rorty left the Philosophy department (for Virginia, I think) pretty soon after that class - due to the kind of disagreement between the analytical philosophers and him rumored to be at the root of the Bernstein/Yale break (Rorty didn't believe that logic was the core of philosophy). And Rorty was a gifted lecturer with an extremely dry sense of humor. I think I laughed more often in that class than in any other that was to follow.