Dr Sadler's AMA (Ask Me Anything) Session - April 2021 - Underwritten By Patreon Supporters

[@jeffsullivan4182]

Stoic Metaphysics nerd here. For Stoic Logic, Susanne Bobzien is one of the major scholars, and I can’t remember who wrote “Chrysippus Confronts the Liar” about the Liar paradox, but that one was really good too. For me, Chrysippus’ takes on the various fallacies, as fragmentary as they are, are the most interesting part. For Stoic Metaphysics, AA Long and David Sedley are (both in “the Hellenistic Philosophers” and in their other papers) the standard, and John Sellars is always good, but personally I think Vanessa De Harven is doing the best recent work; her dissertation “The Coherence of Stoic Ontology” is the most satisfying treatment of the subject I’ve encountered so far, and she has shorter works (many available online) on topics like Void, Categories, Blending etc. For primary sources, as Dr. Sadler said, bits and pieces pop up in the Roman Stoics, but you have to go back to Diogenes Laertius (he copies out a Stoic Logic handbook in book 7) Cicero and especially Sextus Empiricus to dive in (books 7 and 8 have the fullest treatments of both incorporeals and logic anywhere in the fragments, and a lot of research papers wind up being making Sextus, Cicero, and Laertius agree and then bringing in other fragments to back up one’s interpretation) After that, Plutarch’s two anti-Stoic works are full of good material, and then you’re into Christians like Clement of Alexandria, Neoplatonists like Simplicius, and writers on other subjects like Gelius. Reading predecessors of the Stoics on Logic (anything Megarian, especially Diodorus Cronus) and Metaphysics (Heraclitus and Plato especially) are always good for understanding where the Stoics were going. Stoic Metaphysics is a bottomless rabbit hole made even more tantalizing by the lack of full texts.

[@poeticdiscourse]

Thanks for answering my question! I'm going to look into Anselm. I appreciate the work you do Gregory

[@GregoryBSadler]

You're welcome - and thanks!

[@joey.a.t.]

Professor: I’m very interested in the nascent, nay, cracking egg of pandemic commentary as apropos to biopower/biopolitics. Can you comment, or perhaps point me in the direction of further investigation? Much Respect, -joey

[@GregoryBSadler]

Ask next AMA

[@Verdadeiro]

Hi, Greg! I asked the question about Socrates and Anaxagoras of Clazomenae. In the APOLOGY Meletos accuses SOCRATES of atheism and claims that he "says the sun is a stone and the moon is earth", then Socrates immediately attributes these beliefs to the natural philosopher, ANAXAGORAS, and distances himself from these teachings. Basically Socrates mocks the latter, as a "flat earther" would a man of science, someone like Neil DeGrasse Tyson. So, it appeared to me (I need to read Plato dialogues, and not just this one, all again) that Socrates really didn't believe all the claptrap about the Sun, Moon, etc. being gods, so he pretended to besmirch Anaxagoras reputation by calling him a lunatic, and pretending he (Socrates) wasn't an atheist. So, if I could give you an idea for a future video, would be to discuss how religious this period where Socrates lived was, if there was some sort of 100% atheism or if people believed in a monotheistic God and at the same time were interested in science. Because it is very interesting to realize that centuries before Christ someone already hinted what we know these days, that celestial bodies are just that, not supernatural beings. I need to comb your channel to see what you discussed about THE APOLOGY, you published many interesting videos, but I haven't checked this and other philosophers with more attention.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Socrates wasn't an atheist

[@GregoryBSadler]

@guttergrown was here The charges were atheism and corrupting the young. Two separate charges

[@Verdadeiro]

@guttergrown was here If you think about it, even if you are an atheist, you'll reach the conclusion the idea of multiple GODs defies logic. it doesn't make sense believing there is more than ONE. Why? Because if GOD is eterrnal, so has always existed and always will, meaning it was never created, that implies it's outside space and time. So a 2nd GOD would have to not existed before it was created. Also if a 2nd GOD exists then the 1st one (then BOTH) would have to be equal, so omnipotence goes out the window because one can create and/or destroy another. And the scientists idea the UNIVERSE itself is eternal (so GOD was not necessary) was dismissed after the 20th century. Time has a beginning, at the moment of creation (the Big Bang). Observational evidence contradicts this old hypothesis, since the universe began to exist a finite ~13.8 billion years ago. If GOD created time, then cause and effect would never apply to HIS existence. When I first read this dialogue I thought Socrates challenged this notion about multiple gods, and considered somehow the science of his period, that for some the celestial bodies were not supernatural entities. I thought he was so smart that he had to lie to protect himself. This excerpt (read below) explains why Socrates was charged with these false allegations, it's my understanding he was being too much of a dissident and they found a way to get rid of him: >>>> In the social life, those in authority should not do things just because they are in a position to shape public opinion, but instead they should be objective in whatever they do in order to achieve justice. Democracy is the worst form of governance because it amounts to the tyranny of the multitude. Democratically elected leaders are not good leaders because they do not aim at achieving justice. They aim at fulfilling the interests of the majority who elected them. The majority are not always right because they are not the best in society. The best leaders should be chosen based on a certain criteria, such as the education system. This was something that sent Socrates to jail because the owners of the means of production never wanted to hear something that would jeopardize their position in society.

[@shockingdiscovery3437]

Do you think studying philosophy will be beneficial for becoming a detective?

[@shockingdiscovery3437]

@El Chupacabra Police detective. Yeah I’m thinking of doing a masters conversion course into analytic philosophy with a focus on political philosophy, philosophy of language, moral philosophy and logic

[@shockingdiscovery3437]

@El Chupacabra Yeah I’ve been looking online but found next to nothing about philosophy students going into law enforcement but the little interaction I have had with philosophy, which was enough to make me want to study it, leads me to believe that it would be an excellent subject to study before joining the police. I’m just finishing a criminal justice and forensic science degree which did come with a lot of knowledge about the system but transferable skills not so much. I’ll give that a try but don’t think they’ll say much about philosophy. Thank you for your replies btw!🙂

[@MichaelJimenez416]

I see the distinction you’ve draw between pseudoscience and good science that is poorly interpreted. I’m taking a psychology class for my final breadth requirements and I cannot believe how some of these studies are reported. It’s a shame because the results do provide valuable resources, but we too often project an overly ambitious context onto them.

[@GregoryBSadler]

That's about the nicest way we can say what they're doing, " an overly ambitious context"