Mike and Darren: Unplugged ep. 6
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- čas přidán 16. 02. 2023
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This is the official CZcams channel of Dr. Michael Sugrue.
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Dr. Michael Sugrue earned his BA at the University of Chicago and PhD at Columbia University.
I never cared for literature when I was in school. It wasn't until one day, when i was much older, that i realized somewhere along the way I had lost something. I didn't know what it was or how to recover it but I just suddenly realized that something was different. Literature has served as a roadmap for me to find what I had lost. It's as if it was intentionally left there for those who lost their way.
You are being written into an immense novel. Guess who the Author is.
@@dr.michaelsugrue I guess that depends on if you believe in determinism or not
Tldr: You are your life’s author either way!
Definitions: I understand determinism in the sense on the clockwork universe. So everything in the past present and future is already set to have occurred or occur by a set mechanism. This implies that you don’t have freedom of will as it is not you who decides your fate but the universe that exists. (The interesting thing here being that you seem to be observing existence: predetermined actions and distinguishing yourself and other things.)
Now consider a deterministic world:
You are an author since you acts as anything which gets described as an actor would acts. To a macroscopic perspective, you are the main cause of events in your life. This is just semantical trickery: in a deterministic world either nothing is an author since everything is causally predetermined or (as i use it here) the things we describe as authors are authors.
Consider a non deterministic world:
To a macroscopic perspective, you are the main cause of events in your life. This time around, it is actually true and not just an illusion. You have influence on your life and are truly an author.
Beautiful comment
@@dr.michaelsugrue who god?
Every time there is a gap between new videos, I fear for The Professor’s health.
Hope everything is ok.
he has since passed away. may he rest in peace
:(
Been a decent gap between vids praying for your good health ❤
This man is really sitting on a plastic patio chair indoors I love it
The furniture of my life is behind me, not underneath me.
The most intelligent man I’ve met was a distinguished economics professor whom was my wife’s uncle. He lived in a room full of so many books that you had to climb over them and they were used as both his table and chair. His spouse had passed 20 years before him and his relationships were limited to roaches with whom he shared his food. When you seek to know, the trappings of useless possessions have no import in your life.
In a discussion of aesthetics, the chair has a 'reading' too, and to me it's a latter day barrel of Diogenes
Just checking in on our good professor. Hope you are well Sir! 🙏
Thank you both for adding immeasurable value to the internet!
00😊😊0lp7😊pplp pp pp p00pl lo
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Darren and Michael are here to help me make sense of the world (again)! This just made my weekend. Thank you.
Touche!
They're still trying to make a sense of their worlds.
It really is an unbelievable blessing that these videos exist.
It's probably just your typical collegiate level "esoterica". I'm glad I never went . Higher learning occurs too early in life, it's wasted on the very demographic that DOESN'T want to learn .
@@ttacking_you note the use of “probably.” Honestly man what’s even the point of a comment like that? Reassurance that their knowledge must be trivial so you can justify the fact that you never got a proper education?
@@stevemartinez1360 the point is that I , personally, enjoy learning more than I did when I was younger. They are talking about esoteric shit. Which is far more tolerable from them than from some 18 - 25 year old. My statement is far more pointed than yours, so why all the vitriol?
@@stevemartinez1360 you don't have to tear me down. I wasn't tearing them down. If you minimize others to build yourself up. ( You do, according to how your mindset just revealed) you should know that life minimizes everyone, and it's gonna make us all feel better about ourselves
@@ttacking_you Your statements continue to be ignorant. There are plenty of young listeners interested in this stuff. You’re making a value judgement based on age. I shouldn’t have to explain how foolish that is.
Please don't stop doing these- they're great.
Dr. Mike Sugrue your lecture on Marcus Aurelius was and is the best ever in history of mankind.
"It never explains Itself; It just shows up."
You two are an absolute powerhouse and balance each other out so well. I’m so grateful for finding this channel.
I could listen to this for the rest of my life, no ego or showmanship, just pure discussion, I can only imagine this is what went on at places like the stoa back in the day
What's the stoa ? Sounds like where Aurelius taught stoicism?
@@ttacking_you no Aurelius never taught Stoicism. Stoa means "porch" in Greek. It's where the Stoics first used to gather in Athens
@@nicknorizadeh4336look I'm way too epicurean to worry about that kinda stuff
What a privilege to be able to listen to these conversations.
I froze when Dr.Sugrue looked straight in the camera. Greetings from Ireland.
Thank you both for everything, Sugrue and Professor Staloff.
With the deepest appreciation and respect for your wisdom.
People don't listen to the vacuum cleaner by choice because there's no opportunity for pattern recognition, which our brains really enjoy.
Anyway - love the videos. Always a pleasure.
Thank you once again for sharing your time and intellect, it’s always a great pleasure to hear you speak
Big love, Michael and Darren. Currently listening my way through everything you have uploaded. Cheers lads, top billing. By far the most valuable content on CZcams. Wish you both all the very best ❤
Thank you both so much. This is brilliant. I’m watching a lecture a day from Sugrue. I feel so privileged so be able to hear such fantastic lectures !
You are both teaching treasures.
Thankyou for making these available and communicating so many different areas of thought, from your hard earned education you bless us through what you share :)
Ohhh baby! This is my Friday night PARTY. I. Love. You. BOTH!
Love these talks
This was engrossing ✌😸
- I enjoy these discursive chats in a completely different way to the prepared speech content
(which I also love, being that which brings me back here regularly - It's so wonderful to get to share in these openly-available-to-all knowledge sessions)
Always a pleasure to watch! I'd like to see Michael choose a topic!
It's so nice to watch the old videos of you lecturing and now watching you live!! Cheers from Brazil!
Mike and Darren Unplugged always stimulating!
Thanks for this conversation that we were able to listen to. Brilliant!
Another great episode!
Really enjoyed the brief commentary on modern society last week.
Bravo, look forward to the continuation of this talk guys, thanks
Love the talk about symmetry and asymmetry. It's something I think about a lot. Symmetry is very beautiful and somehow edifying to us, but there can also be something chilling about it perhaps. Reminds me of the Snow chapter in The Magic Mountain, when Hans Castorp meditates on the eerie symmetrical perfection of snowflakes, and how there's almost something forbiddingly inhuman and sterile about something that's so precise and perfect compared to our warm human messiness.
Anyway, I really love these Unplugged talks! I've followed along with every one of them so far, and always look forward to the next installment.
Thank you very much
There's few scenes in my mind more romantic that the vision of a young Sugrue rocking out to the Sex Pistols when it really meant something.
On a more serious note I found this an incredibly productive conversation. I think you've found a nice, "rhythm."
Senior year I encountered the Pistols and was edified. I stopped by several professors offices with a cassette player and '"God save the Queen", to inform them of what the future sounded like. None were happy, but Allen Bloom looked at me the way a countess might look at a cockroach and said wearily, "Turn that off and leave", but I protested, "But Professor, this is Nietzsche you can dance to". "Out" he said fearing for the state of the world.
@@dr.michaelsugrue lol
@@dr.michaelsugruesome time in the near future can you talk about your experience as Bloom's student and the influence Strauss has had on you?
best unplugged yet.
This one made me smile
Thank you!
Dude they are literally the best.
That's legit. They're literally, more literate than the literati .. consider the issue , litigated
Well, my screen just suggested this video again. I saw it however not long ago. But I've just finished listening to Michael's excellent lecture on Locke. Thank you for this magnificent reading of Locke! I've got to read/study that Second Treatise. The way Michael summarizes so insightfully these works, including the essay on religious toleration--it's just an incredible feat of memory and interpretation, understanding and insightful relevance. There are a couple of Straussian experts on Locke--Nathan Tarcov and Michael Zuckert. It's hard for me to imagine either of these two gentlemen just stepping back for a few minutes and explaining for a general audience what Locke is about in his historical context, and for our time. Of course we all have different skills. Dr. Sugrue's ability to teach someone like me is very much appreciated. Not that there isn't a substantial amount to be unpacked in his lectures, quite apart from the surface-level exposition. His words are chosen carefully. And, goodness, the part about Daniel Defoe was absolutely brilliant in fleshing out both Locke and "Robinson Crusoe"!
Thank you 🙏
So enjoyable!
Thank you
On the question of whether beauty has objectivity - it's interesting to observe animals for whom aesthetic creation is important in mate selection, like the white-spotted pufferfish, whose whole mating ritual involves creating an intricate mandala structure, taking over a week to construct, without stopping. The female then selects the best artwork and lays its eggs in the centre of the mandala structure.
Compare this to the rose window in the Notre Dame cathedral, with the Christ-child in the centre of the mandala.
I don't think that's a coincidence.
Beauty, I would argue, exists objectively as an archetype in the mind, experienced with subjective variety. Or in the words of ethologists: a fixed action pattern
That bit about Foucault made me laugh last night. Now it is morning and it is still funny. Great video.
I came here after watching a video on Thomas Aquinas.
I'd be grateful if Michael Sugrue has any recommended books or lectures. Especially in relation to Aristotle + Aquinas.
This is the best of drinking content, better than music 😀. Cheers big ears.
Thank you guys so much for doing this! Would you ever consider maybe giving us a run-down of what happened in your lives the old lecture videos? I would love to hear more about you.
It would be cool if they kind of interviewed eachother on their motivations for getting into their field of study. What captured them about history and philosophy and what not
Wurd. Like, I actually care about them and wanna know that too. Wish them both the best, gosh
These are amazing. I appreciate so much both of your lack of political agenda and complete impartialness to topics discussed.
Should be called mike and darren plugged. Because we plugging in to the channel
This has become my most anticipated thing ever! Thanks for the enlightening lectures!
Informative discussion 👌
The religious may “just show up” without apparent explanation or justification because the religious experience is prior to the possibility of ethics and reason (regarding 19:30). Of course, I study Meister Eckhart, so I’m thinking mysticism here, learned ignorance and the like and not the commonplace sort of claim to have a knowledge producing revelation.
Anyway, I love your work and I’ve been watching your videos for a long time - I especially enjoy seeing them right before I go in to teach my own philosophy classes… you’re one of the ones who often helps to get my mind going! 😊
When’s the next one?! I’d watch these guys every week if I could do it.
Thanks
I really like more philosophical takes on aesthetics, really broadens my knowledge on the topic 🙏
great point about the distinction between the beautiful and the sublime, esp. in the case of turner
0:20 On The Role of Aesthetics. 🌠
2:25 Family Resemblance. 👨👩👧👦
2:45 Hyperactivity, Images, Distractions. 👀
3:30 Great Art outlasts People. 🖼️
8:36 A Dynamic Brain 🧠
9:38 Feedback Loop 🔂
12:20 _The Alpanist_ 🧗♀️
14:20 The Challenge of Explaining Beauty in words.
15:26 Aesthetics and Ethical, ⚾️
17:45 DANGER ⚠️
18:25 Presupposition.
20:30 Asthetics seems (unbox-in-able) change over time.
23:25 Identity Expression, Particularity of the human person. Sense of Self.
25:33 Aesthetics are Not Purely Arbitrary.
26:38 Pallet Cultivation as we age as a person.
27:41 The Grand Canyon in real life.
31:58 Unstructured Art, how does the artist know when to finish? Jackson Pollack.
33:35 Taste Change.
Beautiful
Sublime -
39:07 16th Century, 18th Century Romanticism, 1905 Einstein
43:48 The Athenian Tradition(s)
49:00 Aesthetics disciplined by Ethics.
52:25 Fallen Man.
Alpanist not Alchemist
@@CosmicLion777 Thank you, my bad 👍🏼
Darren is so damn good.
He has great chops.
If Michael isn't drinking good beer, it is strong coffee.
Apple's dictum "Think differently" takes on a sinister tone here
I‘m thirty minutes in, and it‘s a very pleasurable episode, as always! Just one minor thought: isn‘t it almost time for a new playlist on the channel? 😉
We‘re six episodes in, and I think I‘m not the only one who would love to be able to watch them consecutively/chronologically.
It's possible to make your own playlists
I could listen to you two talk all day, thanks for doing this dr. It counteracts the stupids i get from being around dullards at my workplace all day. Not that I'm a genius by any means, but talking about nothing but shooting coyotes in the face every day gets real old real quick.
Feel better Michael, we're looking forward to another video. A topic I would personally find fascinating would be about how your philosophic and religious views have changed since your original series. I realize you've touched on this at various times but it would be nice to get a dedicated episode.
I think he became a little more Christian but it is difficult to tell.
@@Verulam1626 I think so as well and am very curious to hear more. It's one thing to know the personal views and beliefs of a philosophy scholar of this stature but quite another to see how they've matured and refined over decades.
@@mountainjay I know what you mean. But the thing with Christianity is that it does not divorce itself from philosophy in the ways it can more so with Judaism and Islam. In other words, his Christian world view is not merely personal but a lense through which his intellect can use its faculties in an ordered and hierarchical world.
Hearing his views on Aquinas overtime is also helpful. But by no means am I saying he is a Thomist. His older lectures on Paul, Luther, and Job are some of his best imo. It is implicitly clear from those older lectures that he intimately cares about the Bible without imposing it unto others.
Another thing, Sugrue studied under Alan Bloom as an undergraduate at the University of Chicago. Bloom is a student of Leo Strauss. If you can ever find a transcript version of Sugrue's Great Courses on Plato, you will actually find footnotes used that can only be found in the text version... It is clear he is aware of Leo Strauss and the "Straussians," especially Bloom's translation of the Republic. I think the reason Sugrue did not become so much of a Straussian is because he is Christian. He is oddly silent on Strauss and his legacy despite clearly having one of his books on his shelf. If you looked more into the work to Strauss and his legacy this would make more sense as to why Sugrue doesn't speak much of him and why his Christianity would be at odds with Leo Strauss.
Strauss and his influence can be found in Sugrue's Machiavelli and Plato lectures. Somewhere in one of his podcasts he actually explicitly and emphatically acknowledged Strauss'influence on him when it came to reading Machiavelli.
@@Verulam1626 This is hard to believe, didn't Strauss disdain atheism? Further, Sugrue's Bible lectures on Job etc. are my fav as well, though he gives them in a detached academic fashion without reverence or dogmatism. This leads me to think he had a spiritual awakening later on in life after the original lectures.
@@Verulam1626 Sugrue basically quotes Strauss in agreement saying that Machiavelli's chief academic export was evil.
I'm not a connoisseur of art nor am I educated in art history. All I know is I bought a calendar of F. E. Church paintings and was blown away. I would be interested in your take on his place in the esthetic and his apparent anonymity in the present day.
Change is the only constant
Awesome discussion! In my experience , the aesthetic always had a " spiritual " quality to it . I was effectively evangelized by beauty . I recall when i was young , I would think to myself that the core claims of religion are not something I believe , but rather, simething I "know" or experience . Ultimately , the aesthetical would lead to the desire for the ethical . After all , isn't virtue basically " inner beauty". This seems to run contrary to the either/ or of Kierkegard , no?
Hello professors. Just checking in to see when episode seven might drop and to express our collective hope that all is well with you both, particularly Professor Sugrue. We all hope he is on the mend and that we will see him and his horned beer glass very soon.
I hope he’s ok
Me too...I'm hoping we might see an update from his daughter soon about whatever's going on...
@@BruceCrane-di5et amen
Go off king
By the way, those Chinese alphabet symbols or characters, in Darren's house, added to the overarching sense of preciousness and beautiful uniqueness of the many distinct cultures, regions, that give us such aesthetic pleasure and inspiration. (My hobby horse of late has been watching CGTN and loving many things Chinese (but not perhaps their lack of respect, if any, for their fifty-six ethnic minorities).
where are you seeing these chinese characters? those paintings in the back are most certainly not characters.
Looks like trees to me
@@junonismusica8670 Okay I stand corrected; at first glance, they looked like characters from the Chinese "alphabet." At any rate, to my eyes, they look Asian, not Western.
@@jdzentrist8711 i see nothing in them that would make them eastern at all but im no sinologist after all. they seem like the kinds of things my mothers purchases at a homegoods or similar type store, low quality, mass produced, pop art.
I bet music is amazing with all the philosophy you understand.
I ❤️ philosophy in Art. Music, films... and especially the most modern form of Art, memes. How much are memes programming the organic androids. It's the Muppet show we are experiencing and for some of us enjoying immensely.
I like the sound of the vacuum cleaner...
We'd have to define our terms, starting with our concept of mind.
I've been listening to Isaiah Berlin's lectures, on Romanticism, on political judgment and on "Against the Enlightenment." His discussions of Hamann and Herder have been of extreme interest to me. He seems to personally relate to the somewhat "unbalanced" Herder, and especially the latter's abhorrence of those (like Caesar) who "trampled on" others. Things should be allowed, if at all possible, to grow naturally and flourish--societies, peoples with their national consciousnesses. He explained the German soul to me and this touches on their sublime music and philosophy (Hamann being a "magus" for Herder). He illumined for me their "inwardness" as a consequence of their geography and geopolitical fates, vis-a-vis the French, with their "symmetry imperialism," their [Hedgehog] Cartesian "rationality."... Joseph Ratzinger mentions Bach and Mozart as his favorites, not Beethoven. That genius is just too much for the conservative sensibility. He is by far my favorite pope and Beethoven my favorite composer (especially the "Pastoral"). But I love the Brandenburgs Concertos. Kenneth Clark said that Handel's "Messiah" never fails to bring tears to his eyes. For me, this happens with Trisha Yearwood's "She's in love with the boy." Berlin puts me in a different place; I literally can't wait for the next lecture. He is challenging all my recent illiberal sensibilities. He implies that he is not fooled by Rousseau's charms; Rousseau is at root not a Romantic, but a rationalist. And the inspiration for those extremists, those gnostics and tyrants who just KNOW, and are willing to purge all those who just don't SEE. (Yet, the "Emile" seems to have greatly inspired Herder's passionate belief in letting things grow naturally.) So there needs ideally to be a "national consciouness" (NOT A NATIONALISM). At the same time, this ROOTEDNESS, this BELONGING, should thrive in a world of DIFFERENCES. As I listened to these fascinating remarks on Herder, I thought of how he must have influenced the great Foucault. Now, I have the impression that poor Foucault did not have a sense of humor. Berlin, for his part, has a SUBLIME sense of humor! By the way, I really enjoyed the concrete examples given tonight and felt so grateful for the art history courses, and the Rome Semester: The Parthenon, "The Bacchae", Plato's "anxiety of influence," Giotto, Chartres, Vermeer, Constable, Turner, Cezanne, Monet, Pollock, Led Zepellin, Lucian Freud and so much more. Berlin's lecture, "Defining Romanticism," is a delight from beginning to end. With its overflow of delightful, beautiful "pluralism," it would have made Herder proud. And probably Hamann too. I've got to sit down and read Vico. This "amor fati" in Nietzsche is very "German," very German "national consciousness." This inward, Zarathustran JOY in private overcoming (which Berlin calls "sour grapes"--we lost, we are mortified and resentful, but we revel in it..... OMG, the Grand Canyon does put EVERYTHING in perspective! At least, we have the Kimbell, in nearby Ft. Worth....
Well Art is the highest form of abstraction.
I think it's more about integrating the aesthetic with the ethical.
And then integrating the aesthetic and the ethical with the religious.
I think that is the ebb and flow of being authentically human.
HOLY FUCKING SHIT
NEW MIKE & DARREN UNPLUGGED JUST DROPPED
DROP FUCKING EVERYTHING RIGHT GODDAMNED NOW
Prayers for Mike's health.
@BruTalc Amen brother!
Would love to hear your thoughts on Colin Wilson, especially 'The Outsider.'
I would like a discussion on ethics of artificial intelligence. What is consciousness/sentience is. And the consequences of AIs being able to generate creative things such as art, music, engineering etc.
Darren, dropping the "Sex Pistols" into the conversation! Sid Vicious would have loved it! Dr's. Staloff and Sugrue are two of the very, very few people that make sense to me in this world today.
Did the pre-Socratics share the divided line or just the deductive reasoning of geometry?
What about this: you can apprehend nature directly through the sublime, but once you say "nature is beautiful" your perception is colored by unconscious artificial categories. The Grand Canyon is sublimely awesome. On the other hand, the intricate beauty of a beehive is like a lacy geometrical pattern, or you're fascinated by how order emerges from the bees' labor, and you wouldn't feel it the same if you didn't know about geometry and communal labor. But you can live in this type of experience on its own, the sublime is also in it
Huzzah!
Dang, Dr. Sugrue. Your hair sure grows back fast! Haha. You're looking well! You remain in my prayers. Darren, who is Tatiana? Helping with the video?
So we are nature personified.
Hey Dr. Sugrue and whoever may be reading. I enjoyed Dr. Staloff's treatment of Aristotle, but im surprised by his relative lack of coverage in comparison to Plato on the channel. There are many many writers and philosophers to get to though. Just my thoughts, I'd be interested in hearing more about him.
I have several lectures on Plato posted here and a 16 lecture set on audible.
@@dr.michaelsugrue I'll get into them, thank you.
Ok.. here goes.. I remember circa Oct 2022 an article in a local newspaper(Daily Mail : U.K.) about a Piet Mondrian piece(New York City I) This, I believe, was exhibited in MoMA New York in 1945. The reveal was that it had been hanging upside down for 75 years( moved from NY in 1980) Does this make you smile? Do you know/ are you aware of it? Did you see it in the seventies?
“Art is higher than reality and has no direct relation to reality. To approach the spiritual in art, one will make as little use as possible of reality, because reality is opposed to the spiritual. We find ourselves in the presence of abstract art. Art should be above reality, otherwise it would have no value for man” PM
Was this a deliberate act by PM..ie was it hung in his studio upside down for which the curators followed suit? How was the mistake made? The most incredible thing is that these events happened in the 1940’s!!
Also, I believe, Matisse’s Le Bateau suffered the same fate in MoMA although only for 47 days! It has to make you smile… Culture eh..
Schopenhauer spoke of the “Plastic Arts” over 200 years ago. Please Dr Stallof.. for the auditors/readers/audience..can you bring it into our time? Please for us what are the plastic arts? A video would be much appreciated.. You could title this “What are the plastic arts? A derogatory term or not”?
The Fibonacci sequence is important in aesthetics, the golden ratio determines universal beauty.
Get Cornell West on here!
I expected Michael to talk about the conclusion that Fredrick Nietzsche came to talking about aesthetics being the alternative to religion or the replacement, Nietzsche being a poet and so forth.
Well as things in ourselves, we don't create the concepts, do we?
Dr. Mike explodes the Either/Or within the first 5 minutes
Jackson Pollock was finished when the CIA stopped funding his art.
Waiting on my Staloff- Kant episode, in his leather jacket.
I’m curious as to where they would place Warhol. What are your thoughts? Would his work be on the Dionysian asymmetrical side, or more Apollonian and symmetrical. He uses a lot of faces and people. As well as miroir images. Yet he distorts color…
I think that Warhol tried to undermine consumerist culture, while taking advantage of the aesthetics already formulated into his subjects by the food and film industries. His Marilyn is situated on these flat, monochromatic backgrounds, exactly like the Byzantine icons the professors discussed, and his wall of Coke bottles or soup cans seems similar in their geometric approach to Islamic or Celtic art. The irony in worshipping these subjects seems to have been lost on most people, though. His irony isn't as overt as, say, Duchamp's Fountain. But to respond to your question, I would venture "symmetrical but insincere." I think that his later work with Basquiat - which seems at first to be an about-face - clarifies his stance on aesthetics.
He said he was overrated in a past episode🤪
Basquiat was a serious artist who sought transcendence, failed to find it and self destructed. I generally find irony boring and Warhol insufferably overrated. Warhol's group, like Nico and Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground tried to aestheticize heroin addiction.
@@dr.michaelsugrueyou put into words why I never liked them
@@dr.michaelsugrue With all due respect, professor--and I've found your lectures highly enriching--I have to vouch for Nico, vide The Marble Index, as being a "serious artist" also, at least as much as the Sex Pistols. No offense to the Pistols, who have largely coasted on their bass player's heroin-induced pseudo-martyrdom, but I don't spin them nearly as often as the other nihilists of the pop world. I wonder if you could address the problem of subjectivity in part two of your aesthetics discussion? -Your pupil in California
the only thing that is permanent is change.
The Devil was driving the steam roller.
Hagia Sophia is a Greek church that was converted to a mosque
I've just wondered, what philosophy do you practice?
Smoke it 😀