Gregory B. Sadler - That Philosophy Guy

12/23/2025

The great Greek tragedians were, as we all learned, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. Nietzsche doesn't see it that way with the third one and he explains why at length in The Birth Of Tragedy. One of the topics we'll explore in depth in this seminar!

Tuition for participation in the one-day Nietzsche seminar, including access to all of the handouts, and lifelong access to the recording of the seminar session(s)

12/22/2025

This will strike many as an odd choice, especially for an album with so many really excellent Judas Priest songs, but this one has been my favorite from Screaming For Vengeance for a while now

12/22/2025

Here's the first in a series of new Sadler's Lectures podcast episodes on Martin Luther King's Letter From A Birmingham Jail. This one focuses on his analyses of racism and segregation as unjust, damaging, and illegitimate forms of inequality

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century African-American philosopher, theologian, and civil rights leader, Martin Luther King Jr.'s work "Letter From A Birmingham Jail" This episode ex

12/22/2025

Here's another new resource page, with links to 17 lectures in both video and podcast format, going through all the ideas, distinctions, and arguments in book 2 of Cicero's On The Nature Of The Gods, one main source for Stoic views on these matters!

presentation of and arguments for the Stoic position on divinity

12/22/2025

That was 19-year old Sassy's last winter with us. She was the last of our four-legged family, and pretty adaptable, even in her old age. She came to love that pink cat bed. Later that week, we road tripped to Green Bay, and she snoozed partly in her new bed, partly up in ours

12/22/2025

Here's the latest Sadler's Honest Book Review video, this one diving deep into Gordon Marino's The Existentialist's Survival Guide: How to Live Authentically in an Inauthentic Age

Get the book here - https://amzn.to/4pYazneAbout the series - https://gregorybsadler.substack.com/p/the-sadlers-honest-book-reviews-seriesRead my work on Sub...

12/22/2025

Starting a good week. Quiet Christmas ahead with Andi. Resuming open house shifts at cat shelter. Just hit the halfway point of Erikson's 7th Malazan novel. On my second big cup of coffee, and Andi is making me a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich. Quiet writing and planning to do

12/22/2025

Stoic Philosophy makes virtue absolutely central to ethics. If you want to be happy, tranquil, and free, the Stoics think, you must cultivate virtue. They divide virtue into four main or cardinal virtues, which are prudence, justice, courage, and temperance. Marcus Aurelius references each of these cardinal virtues and a number of the many subordinate virtues that these cardinal virtues encompass.

Marcus makes a number of references to the cardinal virtue of prudence or practical wisdom (phronēsis) and to several subordinate virtues falling within its scope.

He tells us that prudence consists in just actions, and lists prudence among the cardinal virtues. He also in 5.9 suggests that nothing is sweeter than practical wisdom, when toy bear in mind the faculty of knowing and reflecting.

He also uses what might be a synonym of prudence at various points, euphron, which is translated variously as "wise", "sane", or "having discretion, and which he provides a definition of in 10.8 as "apprehensive attention to particulars, the opposite of negligence". This definition suggests it might also be viewed as a subordinate virtue.

Marcus uses the terms for two of the subordinate virtues of prudence that Arius Didymus and Diogenes Laertes say the Stoics identified, namely sunesis (understanding) and eulogistia (circumspection). Arguably the other subordinate virtues can also be found in the Meditations, just denoted by their functions rather than their names.

Marcus also makes a number of references to philosophy, start with noting that he desired it, but didn't fall in with sophists, or get focused on literary problems, syllogisms, or meterology. He also tells us that one role of philosophy is keeping the spirit (daimon) within us unwronged and unscathed.

In two places he urges himself to return to philosophy, both to rest in philosophy, and to obtain healing, since philosophy wants what his (properly developed human nature) nature wills. He also urges himself to struggle to become the person philosophy willed to make him.

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12/21/2025

A sweet memory of the little fuzzy Sassy cat, who loved getting cozy. Even better if one of us wanted to lay down and snuggle up with her. But perfectly fine doing it for hours on her own as well, especially with the butterscotch blanket

12/21/2025

Scott & I had a great session of Classic Metal Class just earlier today, thanks in part to our great interlocutors raising questions, setting out suggestions, and engaging in conversation about the roles ethos plays for heavy metal bands & musicians. Video will be out next week!

12/21/2025

We’re just under three weeks out from this 1-day seminar, I opened it for enrollment last week, and we’re already 1/3 enrolled. Looks like there’s a lot of interest in studying Nietzsche’s Birth Of Tragedy!

Study Nietzsche's first great work with an expert guide!