Yes, I was fortunate he selected me for the seminar. In significant part because I knew all three traditions, and because he wanted to discuss prison teaching with me
What a lovely share. Thanks so much Greg. Wonderful you have this connection with Alasdair. My most moving memories were hearing Alasdair talk about the Ends of Life, the Ends of Philosophical Writing before he published it. At that time I was in a temporary remission from a health condition that made me unable to walk, talk, read. I had suspended my phd studies and was uncertain I could participate in philosophy. Alasdair's thoughts on philosophical process had a reassuring effect for me - that something I identified with but was uncertain I could participate in would go well; with me or without me.
MacIntyre is an extraordinary thinker. I recently read and did some extended study on "Breaking the Chains of Reason" ("Out of Apathy" ed. EP Thompson) and it really helped me to elucidate and nail down my problems with Popper, as well as many other insights. I also love the fact he just keeps living! I figured you would have at least one upload on MacIntyre, thought I should check it out. Thanks.
Well well well, Christmas has come early. Thanks for putting this out and for the great stories. Really glad to hear he is such a genuine and earnest guy in real life.
Thanks for posting this. I'm all into MacIntyre right now,. Together with a friend we're trying to translate After Virtue into Dutch. It's not always easy but a good way to study AV
Very interesting. I'm reading "After Virtue" at the moment. It's something I've been intending to do for several years now - every since my campus years which ended with my MA in 2003, actually. I remember encountering some of his main ideas, especially during Ethics lectures, and they always seemed to resonate with me. I'm not really sure why I am only reading it now, so many years after my personal college era. But I certainly don't regret for one second that I picked up this particular book.
Just finished After Virtue. I would be very interested in hearing more about how Stoicism could be understood as a Macintyrean tradition. Great video as always!
@@GregoryBSadler Thank you. A really good article! I also want to thank you for reviving my interest in philosophy again. Your "Self-Directed Study" videos were and are a huge help.
Hey Gregory! I am a great admirer of your work. Like you, I have also been a fan of MacIntyre since my early days in philosophy (for me, between my undergrad and grad school years). I almost went to grad school at Notre Dame to work with him, but MacIntyre left for Duke the year I would've started. I just did a study and put out a video playlist of lectures (for my Ethical Theory class) on Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity (see my baby, COVID-necessitated RU-vid channel if interested), and I'd love to see your take that work, given your apparent experience in the "sausage factory" in which it was being put together.
wow, that was the best adventure story i have heard in a long time. studying philosophy and going to universities can really be adventurous. sadly my journey by far isn't that interesting (yet)
@@GregoryBSadler studying at uni, finding hidden treasures on tropical islands or discovering new authors in various bookstores, teaching φ in prison or wherever life (and philosophy) is calling you, coming from one tradition and finding a new home in another, and finally getting to know MacIntyre personally (and probably many more). sounds very adventurous to me
I came across MacIntyre by accident, I had been trying to figure out how to run a virtue ethics case for debate, and I found after virtue on audible for free, I thought it was secondary literature on Aristotle who I had heard of as a virtue ethicist, they also had nichomachean ethics for free but I decided to go with the “secondary” literature, and well it changed my life. *edit: I should probably add that they’re free with some kind of membership so I guess not really free*
@@GregoryBSadler I have to say coming to after virtue from a debate context, probably had a great deal to do with how much it resonated with me. Because when he talks in the prologue and in the first chapters about these moral debates that are seemingly unresolvable and arguing from mutually incommensurable criterion, I had just spent a season dealing with those very same arguments which usually involved some version one person who didn’t understand consequentialism arguing with someone who didn’t understand deontology or someone running a realpolitik case against some other kind case appealing to social contract theory etc. And then again I’m when MacIntiyre started talking about the issue of how we could effectively decide between any of these, that also struck a cord because I had dealt with that issue the entire season, even more so when the say people would run any or all of these from debate to debate. And also i had already read plato and felt that people where ignoring that whole conception of justice because usually they just ran a watered down power point version of Rawls. This all probably besides the point but i just wanted to share because to me after virtue didn’t seem to solve everything but it did give me a radically new perspective and “woke me from my dogmatic slumber” (which is something Scotsmen seem to be rather good at) and also really helped me to actually form a more genuine interest in philosophy that wasn’t based purely around popular figures and to actually go about trying to educate and improve my own understanding on a more genuine level.
After Virtue was probably the first philosophy book I ever read. In 1985 I was 21, with no college, part of a Catholic Worker community in Milwaukee, reading Stanley Hauerwas because he was a pacifist. He talked about After Virtue a lot, so I read it. Didn't understand much of the book, but these two authors radically changed how I understood the world and myself, leading to my becoming Catholic in 1987, only to discover that almost everyone fell into the same liberal/conservative binary those guys had critiqued. I probably should have spent more time reading philosophy and less time converting, lol.
@@GregoryBSadler North side, near the Marquette campus. Casa Maria. I haven't been back to Milwaukee in many years, but I later discovered the CW house was a few blocks from Dahmer's residence.
Thank you for the video prof. Normally in my generation there is a slang term to describe someone who puts a tremendous ammount of effort into something which is called being "tryhard". I am glad we have a tryhard philosophy instructor on youtube.
I really loved reading After Virtue. His critique of the Enlightenment search for a rational basis for morality was excellent. I’ll definitely eventually look into his other works. Does he speak more about the idea inspired by him of the Benedict Option as a way of preserving virtue traditions in a fragmented culture with no underlying moral unity of vision? I am just wondering how the BenOp fits into his larger thinking or what he’d recommend as an alternative.
The so-called "Benedict Option" has been for the most part coopted, so I'd put that to the side while you read your way through Mac's body of work. If you google search, you can find Mac saying a bit about what others have made of the "Benedict option"
Can you give an overview of Jeffrey Stout’s Democracy and Tradition? Stout seems to offer a rival view to that of Alasdair’s. Love your stuff! Thank you, Dr.
