Obituary Published by the City Journal, “ Jan 17 2024 Michael Sugrue, a former Princeton professor whose 1992 lecture series on the Western canon later captivated millions of UA-cam viewers, passed away on Tuesday after a long battle with cancer.”
You can pay $350,000 for a philosophy major from an ivy league university, and well worth the money, or you can get it free from Professor Sugrue. Thanks so much for your invaluable series of lectures, Professor Sugrue. What a gift!
I would just say though that Sugrue himself always orients his lectures to suggest you should read the philosophy and intends for students to continue their studies. In other words his lectures are uncommonly accessible and well delivered introductions that really give you a solid orientation, but you don’t thus have an Ivy League education.
You can get the lectures for free, which I’ll grant you is a lot, but it’s not the reading, which you can and should do yourself, and it’s not the writing, which you can and should do yourself, and it’s not the conversations, which you can and should have yourself, but the guidance is going to be difficult to find outside a university. But yes, humanity degrees are not worth the price tag anymore, unless you need the certification to jump through the hoops of academia to get a job.
It seems to me that we get out of philosophy what we put into it by philosophizing (both individually and in dialogue) and by seriously engaging philosophical works. A person who does this earnestly over a period of years, reading widely and thinking hard without enrolling at a college or university, might get more out their studies than many who pay hefty tuition at prestigious institutions. What's needed is a way to get constructive criticism and stay challenged. Listening to lectures like these is a beginning.
Ha Ha I know what you mean. I would say I feel like a Rolling Stones fan, pre mobile phones, roaming around looking for that rumoured secret gig, popping in and out of all the pubs in the area. A pint in each pub, and in the morning can't remember a thing. I can't get no...
English isn't my first language but I do understand what the professor says. He's great and I'm really grateful, he's making me life better. Thank you.
Thank you for leaving this comment. I was having a bad time of it and it's wonderful to be reminded that people make the world a better place in so many little ways like the sharing of knowledge and the astounding curiosity of so many everyday people. It's really wonderful. Sorry if this comment is a bit emotional. Thank you again
0:28 Description Background in mathematics 3:30 Start with What’s Inside, Work to get outside. (Shades of Descartes) 5:53 Trying to go for all the marbles Don Quixote of Philosophy Noble Intentions of a Hard To Understand Man *Husserl’s Ideas* 7:22 Certainty & 7:57 Intuition 8:33 I Don’t Know, but You Know 11:20 Self Comes First 11:57 _Philosophy in the Crisis of European Man_ 12:51 Rescue Us From Materialism 13:58 Know Ourselves 16:25 15:17 Dismissed, Fact-Value, Will To Power 17:03 Suspend The External World, it’s irrelevant 18:00 _Sift Man out Of The World_ What is essential to man? 19:14 Shape of Ego 21:04 A Priori, Necessary Truths, Definitions 23:00 CIRCLE ⭕️ Essentials Formulate Knowledge 25:34 Truth Conditions *Critiquing Husserl* 27:23 Wittgenstein’s Counter 30:48 Life World 🗺 As It Appears Human Time is Limited 33:09 Reality of Other Minds? Precision - Domain Sliding Scale 37:12 Thought Transfer, Verbal Community 40:20 Tailor’s Suit Example Fix the theory, not the Experience 43:00 Experience 44:17
The last portion of this lecture is a tour de force on the split between continental and analytic philosophy - and why we need both. Professor Sugrue's lectures are a wonderful endowment to intellectual life.
A true gift to be joined by fellow seekers of wisdom in listening to a great teacher! May we be ever more eloquent and knowledgeable that we may call ourselves the likes of Sugrue!
Professor, you are, in all likelihood, the most gifted educator I’ve ever encountered. Your passion is palpable and your lectures have enriched my life, immeasurably.
One of the things i like most about Dr. Sugrue is that he conveys everything you need to know, and the intellectual level you need to know it, so clearly. No trudging over and over through the same paragraph youve been trying to comprehend, as is the case with a lot of philosophic texts.
The ending with the comparison between the two traditions was just Wow. Couldn't ask for a clearer introduction into this paradigmatic dilemma, reminding me the yin yang symbol. Thanks!!
Half way through the lecture I thought Sugrue gave a logical though very uncharitable perspective of Husserl that didn't really do his ideas justice. However towards the end Surgue provided a very eloquent account of what Husserl (and phenomenology in general) has to offer. This is a very well balanced, clear and enlightening lecture. Outstanding.
Husserl is, by far, the most brilliant Phenomenologist the world has ever seen, on top of the fact that he single handedly legitmized and pioneered the field continuing Bertano's legacy. Bertano was also Freud's teacher.
@@JayyVee41 You surely don’t considering the cute little exaltation you made for Jesus in another comment section. Lucifer will most definitely enjoy the presence of your bottom in his realm of eternal fire. God bless you.
I am able to keep up and I am learning a lot, but man he makes me a little dizzy how much info he is able to insert into my head with every lecture. I feel like I discovered a a gold mine
Had never heard of Husseri yet this is the path that was followed- have been learning about my Self for 79 years starting seriously at 27, and now am fascinated about philosophy and history of the world. Another amazing and helpful lecture. Thank you so much.🙏🌹
Thank you so much professor! I have been struggling with this for a couple of weeks and trying to wrap my mind around some of the essentials in Husserl's work. You have such a gift of clear and interesting lecture.
Although I got a bit list in the middle of this and found attention difficult, I am always impressed with how he ties things up in the end game. Well done. Empiricism ends up being deeply unsatisfactory for living out the existential realities of our personal experience.
why we stand together and haughtily discount epistemologies that dont find it necessary to cuddle with the sensibilities of one species on one planet out of trillions is beyond me. i think good metaphysics is supposed to be an ALL-explaining masterpiece, not something to make some monkeys feel warm in their hearts
I'm only starting to take interest in philosophy and read a brief introductory text about Hussel because I'd like to read Heidegger. This lecture is very useful for me, and I appreciate the person who uploaded this content. I find the professor clear, conveys (at least for me) complex concepts in a succinct manner without taking away depth of reflection and thought. Much regards.
Mike performed informative cross examination of Husserlian Phenomenology yet, other than hearing oblique comments in the form of questions of a confused understanding towards Husserl’s works. Mike, when he spoke on several oh Husserl’s topics, he built a field of straw-men - to conquer, to backup his bewilderment regarding Husserl’s positions. Mike, your talk is quite enlightening… in the manner that elucidates the swath of folks that hodgepodge their way through Husserl’s published works.
All this puts me in mind of a famous passage from Hume's Treatise (I'm paraphrasing from memory): Whenever I enter most intimately into that which I call 'myself'...I cannot help but stumble upon some particular perception or other....of love or hate , pain or pleasure....I never manage to catch 'myself' without some perception or other and never manage to experience anything but the perception....and when all my perceptions should be removed...after the dissolution of my body, I cannot conceive what would by further requisite to make me a complete non-entity.
What Hume did not know or acknowledge is that the removal of all perceptions, as for example in sleep, is ultimately temporary since the Absolute Spirit is eternal and all is conditionally part of IT.
Maybe there's a problem with doing epoche on one's inner being, as thenowchurch kind of indicates below. Maybe the introspection of Hume and Descartes leaves something out because one's inner being, or "mental being," or soul is not fully what it can be without love involving others [it's both one thing AND a group thing...I need to learn more about Husserl's "lebenswelt"]. One wishes to state something flatly and fundamentally on one's own, but actually the transcendental ego is "off" (not fully itself) when it's not connected via these cords to others. In other words, it's not in a state to philosophize! Though of course part of the whole package of "doing philosophy" is sold today academically as something you can do privately and remotely. Without the cost of much taxing involvement with others. There are a lot of types of "others," which could be challenging.
Existential-phrenomenology is now a therapy style, which I've found to be rather refreshing. It seems we've reached that indefinite point in the future :)
I once tried to read Hesserl's book "Ideas" but couldn't make much sense of it. I thought I was dumb. Wish I'd had this lecture back then. It would have made a lot of difference.
14:38 I love how Dr. Sugru dropped this bomb in the middle of nowhere, in one breath: “… the construction of elaborate tautologies is perhaps one of the characteristic philosophical problems of mathematicians who eventually become philosophers…”
May I ask is the eloquent professor in the video the youtuber himself? because the quality of the video tells me it's from 20 years ago but it was uploaded 3 years ago?
My friend got his degree in philosophy at Fordham. He had a professor, John Drummond I believe, who said that husserl is not an idealist. And apparently Drummond is an expert on husserl, even wrote a dictionary of sorts regarding the neologisms. So, it seems if Drummond is correct, if husserl is not an idealist, then that presumption may lead to errors in interpreting husserl. And sugrue I think mentioned husserl as an idealist, though I’d have to listen again.
It's a worthy point. The first step would be to get "Idealism" defined: "In philosophy, idealism is a diverse group of metaphysical views which all assert that "reality" is in some way indistinguishable or inseparable from human perception and/or understanding, that it is in some sense mentally constructed." From this sense, it seems Husserl is an Idealist.
@@brynbstn but wouldn’t that be just be smuggling in idealism? I’m not too savvy on husserl, but I’m sure he’d say I don’t know what’s mentally constructed because I’ve done this bracketing, the epoche, and I’m just studying experience as it’s given to us. Would that be a valid reply?
@@tatsumakisempyukaku Perhaps, but it seems conventional now to put Husserl in the Idealist camp. You can split hairs about it though - - Check out Wikipedia as a starting point.
@@brynbstn Husserl called himself a transcendental idealist, but made clear that idealism in this term is understood in a merely methodological way, not metaphysical. I think (not totally sure) that Husserl just like the Vienna Circle would say that the realism/idealism debate is meaningless. Phenomenology is concerned with meaning and how meaning is constructed (that's the sole reason for Husserl being idealistic), so Husserl would say that phenomenology is about finding out what we mean when we speak about spacial-temporal things, an existing world, etc. and how we can make this way of speaking radically intelligible, proofing that there are good reasons for these language conventions (this is where he's different to Vienna Circle: No, we can't choose between idealist and realist language like we want). How things itself fundamentally are is on a totally different paper - both realist and idealist stances are combinable with Husserl's basic insights and ideas.
Dr. Sugrue reminds me of a thoroughbred race horse. He begins his lectures in a leisurely trot and then ,as his remarkable mind fully engages and gallops, his tongue can barely keep up.
I think he missed the point. He argues that we cannot be sure what that person has experienced is "correct" knowledge. But this is a general epistemological problem. How can I know that what is written on wikipedia is correct? By checking the sources. But how can I know that the sources are right? This leads us to Meno's paradox and it is not just a problem of phenomenology. Let's say that you want to research whether people with dementia have the ability to understand emotions. The typical, scientific way to approach zhis is to do an experiment. E.g. we show people with dementia a range of photos and let them sort the photos based on the emotion. Now it turns out that people with dementia do not seem to be able to understand emotions - at least based on this research. But if you ask caregivers they will tell you that this does not at all reflect their expierience. They will tell you that people with dementia seem to be often well tuned to your emotions. They will tell you they see it in their eye contact, how they touch you, how they embrace you. Nurses will also tell you that they can sense with whom that person has a good feeling with and with whom don't. Now you might question the professional nurse: how do I know that your phenomenological experience is "correct"? Perhaps you see the danger. We tend to believe the "scientific evidence" and treat people based on that evidence. So when the speaker says why do I need phenomenonology to tell me those self evident things, then perhaps you remember that science brought forth ideas like behaviorism that recommended to teach kids like dogs though behavioral conditioning. Then perhaps things like empathy are not as self-evident as the speaker beliefs. Or, said differently, they are often so self-evident that they are simply ignored from the philosophical scientific discourse and we research things that are totally detached from reality. The point is that there is knowledge that is hard to understand and to proof through traditional scientific methodologies and it is dangerous to act upon scientific "discoveries" that neglect this fact. If you study horses, your presence alone will alter how that horse behaves based on how you appear to that horse. An expert "horse whisperer" may tell you that you messed up the experiment because your presence appeared aggressive and that has made the horse anxious. As a result, it acted differently from how it would act if you were not present. Now what kind of messy, hard to describe knowledge is it, that the "horse whisperer" has? Its certainly something that we have difficulties with formalizing in the traditional scientific domain that Husserl argued against. So, I would argue that this circularity he accuses Husserl of is not just a problem of Husserl, but a general philosophical problem and we see it right in the the critique of the speaker. We justify and build rationalist theories and methods based on rationalist theories and methods and end up with ideas how we treat each other and our environment in ways that do not make sense. The implications are obvious. This changes how we treat patients, how we raise kids, how we treat and see workers, in what buildings we live and work in, how we treat and socialize prison inmates, how we try to prevent that people become prison inmates in the first place, etc.
Wow, I didn't know anything about Husserl before but he sounds very much like me in thought. I see things in an uncannily similar way. I didn't know I was a Continental philosopher. I refused to read philosophers' books before because I didn't want their thoughts to affect my hunt for my own ideology. I only took ethics. That I arrived at such identical thoughts leads me to believe there is some validation for these ideas despite the stance Dr. Sugrue takes. I think it is best to view it as.... the goal of minimalizing the rational aspects of the world in order to operate in a more efficient way. A way of connecting and condensing that hopes to move us towards higher concepts and loosen the limits of what is. We separate and classify sometimes to our own detriment. Once this notion is grasped, then people can focus on living rather than processing and reacting to the world around them. There would be fewer negative psychological effects overall because ideally, they would already know themselves at this point, then they can live in a way that makes them happy and can delve into their emotional sides when it is called for as opposed to reacting to external factors that wouldn't otherwise cause an emotional response....Either that or Husserl has a flawed aspect. I am not sure since this is my first introduction to both parties. To me, anything past the limits of what can be said is then what I call the Tao {the known, the unknown, and the combination of both, and is a part of the spiritual realm. There is an aspect of intuition. If there wasn't then my ideologies would not be so close without ever knowing anything about it. All stemming from a sort of intuitional knowledge.
...what "you" call "the Tao"? Really? Please clean up your language and say that "Tao" is a word used for millennia in China for a philosophical concept...and that if you asked 10 different knowledgeable experts on the subject to define "Tao", they would probably all give different answers. IOW please acknowlege that "Tao" has no universally accepted meaning, but that it serves as a kind of placeholder for many different people's different spiritual intuitions. And that, by using it, you intend to somehow give weight to your own (undelineated) use of the word, or to import associations from Chinese philosophy. I ask respectfully. (Your phraseology implies that you invented the word.)
@@Robb3348 I know where it comes from and what it refers to. My statement does not imply I invented the concept. I am simply giving name to the nameless. You know what it is so clearly you didn't misinterpret my words as to mean I invented it. You are merely bothered by the way I wrote a comment. I ask that you reflect upon your own comment and ask if it is written to perfection. This is afterall a technology forum, not a published article. I put only about 5% effort into the comments I make on here. While I do not mind changing something someone finds disrespectful. I think in this case you are reading too much into it.
After watching this lecture, we are biased towards skipping the reading of Husserl’ works altogether. Is there nothing to be gained from learning Phenomenology? In science, even a failed experiment adds to our overall understanding. Why not in the humanities? Can it truly be that Husserl will only lead us down a dead end? Without explaining the ideas of Phenomenology, we have to simply take Sugrue’s word that Phenomenology is a waste of time. The level of depth this video delves is 101. Yet, Husserl wrote prolifically on the topic. Even if it is exhaustive, it still could lead to stimulation of new paths of thought in the student. Professor Sugrue took that from us with his own conclusions.
I think what often gets missed with Husserl is that is not so much he wanted to find this mystery essence to the human soul as such. Its more to do with how we can become conscious of our time in this world. We literally spend so much time of our precious lives inside the confinement of our minds as opposed to actually being *in* the world. We become merely *of* it. I kniw this is sounding like Heideggers Dasein but he clearly took something Husserl could have easily taken and ran with it. Husserl wanted to put it across that to perceive of something primordially in the physical world, is to both become aware of it and perceive of it - thus, think it is true, that it exists. The body cannot conceive of when a thought is reflecting a thought or when a thought reflects physical reality as the same cognitive factulties are at play within our inner perception, as they are outwardly. Its so easy for time to slip away from us in this sense and we become so overwhelmed with speculative thoughts of the past or future or what we think we can rely on intuitively to be the case with something. I think Husserl strayed from this very important factor of his work, leaving it to Heidegger to emply. A lot of his ideas got lost in the breadth of his work. It would be interesting to see (if there was a way. But hey! perhaps there is!) When we die, we get some kind of print out statistics of how much time we actually spent inside out heads or on our screens in comparison to how much time was spent actually engaging with our immediate experience of the world. How many hours of conversations were spent in total on the phone, in text, on video calls etc and how may hours were spent engaged in genuine face to face conversation. Husserls work may not have been as recognised as he would have liked during his day but the more technology advances and the more time people spend experiemcing the world second hand on their screens.....it will very much be revived into todays mainstream world
I took basically the entire same course but from a more European perspective with mainly European professors, although our main philosphy professor was a Fulbright scholar. Its interesting to see the differences in interpretation
QUESTION: Do you have professor Sugrue's lecture on existentialism in the "Great Minds" series titled " The Existential Insight Sartre and Heidegger" on your list of future uploads? Thanks.
You are never going to find a better introduction to Husserl's thought and philosophy than here. The one problem is that Dr. Sugrue does not really talk very much about Husserl's concept of the Life World and how some of his followers have developed it. He drops the notion of "intersubjectivity" and quickly abandons it right at the conclusion of his talk.
I have recently started reading Husserl and decided to check out this lecture. I must say, that despite the fact that the professor is obviously knowledgable and highly intellectual, he seems to not understand Husserl, and he even said so that he had troubles understanding his theories in this lecture. It is true that it's not an easy read and I do come back to the same paragraphs time and time again because the idea keeps eluding me, but the fact is that phenomenology is not exactly "just another type of philosophy". Yes, the idea of the essences is hard, but it has nothing to do with the language and the reference to Wittgenstein is not apropos. One example I can give based on what I've read and learned so far: all empirical sciences (like physics) base their theories and discoveries on Eidetic (or Ideal, Essential) sciences like logic, and moreover, the empirical sciences cannot exist without the Eidetic sciences, e.g. you can't study the outer world without having an Ideal framework to deal with it, like the laws of logic (not empirical), mathematical axioms (math is an eidetic/ideal science, not empirical). So in short, the study of the outer world must be based on some non-empirical axioms. It's just one of the things Husserl discusses.
8:42 is it me, or do people attempt other-mind-reading often ("you did it because.. Why were you {emotion}" and so on. And then I--know--it was not the case. I tell the person, and sometimes they even do a follow up mind reading attempt 'you lie' which I equally know I didn't and they could never know for certain while I can.
3:18 I am not certain that the "knower [necessarily] preceeds the known". I would suggest the existence of self and the knowledge of self are synonymous. Hence, thinking is proof of existence. At least, that is my interpretation of Descartes.
as a person leaning on the side of Empiricism, I always struggles to make sense of poetry. To me it sounds vague, nebulous and even nonsensical... 🤔🤷♂️
@@benbell9170 : It attempts to convey meanings at several different levels. Think of it like a piece of Bach counterpoint, but with only a single line of notes. Poetry has to be read with close attention. And with the heart more than the head. With the left brain more than the right brain.
Rest in peace Michael Sugrue you were such a great teacher and philosopher.
Hes still alive. He runs this channel
Obituary Published by the City Journal, “ Jan 17 2024
Michael Sugrue, a former Princeton professor whose 1992 lecture series on the Western canon later captivated millions of UA-cam viewers, passed away on Tuesday after a long battle with cancer.”
Oh 😢
Love from India
You can pay $350,000 for a philosophy major from an ivy league university, and well worth the money, or you can get it free from Professor Sugrue. Thanks so much for your invaluable series of lectures, Professor Sugrue. What a gift!
wonderful comment, this knowledge is incalculable value. Thank you Sugrue for your knowledge and generosity.
I would just say though that Sugrue himself always orients his lectures to suggest you should read the philosophy and intends for students to continue their studies. In other words his lectures are uncommonly accessible and well delivered introductions that really give you a solid orientation, but you don’t thus have an Ivy League education.
You can get the lectures for free, which I’ll grant you is a lot, but it’s not the reading, which you can and should do yourself, and it’s not the writing, which you can and should do yourself, and it’s not the conversations, which you can and should have yourself, but the guidance is going to be difficult to find outside a university. But yes, humanity degrees are not worth the price tag anymore, unless you need the certification to jump through the hoops of academia to get a job.
❤❤❤
It seems to me that we get out of philosophy what we put into it by philosophizing (both individually and in dialogue) and by seriously engaging philosophical works. A person who does this earnestly over a period of years, reading widely and thinking hard without enrolling at a college or university, might get more out their studies than many who pay hefty tuition at prestigious institutions. What's needed is a way to get constructive criticism and stay challenged. Listening to lectures like these is a beginning.
Nothing is more compelling or illuminating than a teacher whose topic excites him.
I feel like a crack fiend every time I look for a new upload
Ha Ha I know what you mean. I would say I feel like a Rolling Stones fan, pre mobile phones, roaming around looking for that rumoured secret gig, popping in and out of all the pubs in the area. A pint in each pub, and in the morning can't remember a thing. I can't get no...
_haha, good sh!t_
Factos
So good
Can you share a little
English isn't my first language but I do understand what the professor says. He's great and I'm really grateful, he's making me life better. Thank you.
same here!
and furthermore, I don't come from a country with Western tradition, yet I can take many ideas from Professors lectures.
If English is your second language and you are able to understand the lecture fully then you are an excellent polyglot 👌🏾
thank you. your comment made me watch the video and it was so worth it!
really a good professor.
Thank you for leaving this comment.
I was having a bad time of it and it's wonderful to be reminded that people make the world a better place in so many little ways like the sharing of knowledge and the astounding curiosity of so many everyday people.
It's really wonderful.
Sorry if this comment is a bit emotional.
Thank you again
@mutabazimichael8404 polyglot means you know 3 or more languages. But being bilingual is definitely impressive in it's self.
Stunning intellect. What a pleasure and privilege to listen to these lectures.
0:28 Description
Background in mathematics
3:30 Start with What’s Inside, Work to get outside. (Shades of Descartes)
5:53 Trying to go for all the marbles
Don Quixote of Philosophy
Noble Intentions of a Hard To Understand Man
*Husserl’s Ideas*
7:22 Certainty &
7:57 Intuition
8:33 I Don’t Know, but You Know
11:20 Self Comes First
11:57 _Philosophy in the Crisis of European Man_
12:51 Rescue Us From Materialism
13:58 Know Ourselves 16:25
15:17 Dismissed, Fact-Value, Will To Power
17:03 Suspend The External World, it’s irrelevant
18:00 _Sift Man out Of The World_
What is essential to man?
19:14 Shape of Ego
21:04 A Priori, Necessary Truths, Definitions
23:00 CIRCLE ⭕️
Essentials Formulate Knowledge
25:34 Truth Conditions
*Critiquing Husserl*
27:23 Wittgenstein’s Counter
30:48 Life World 🗺
As It Appears
Human Time is Limited
33:09 Reality of Other Minds?
Precision - Domain Sliding Scale
37:12 Thought Transfer, Verbal Community
40:20 Tailor’s Suit Example
Fix the theory, not the Experience
43:00 Experience
44:17
Wow, thanks for this. It helps.
thanks time stamp guy
Not all heros and all that! Thank you sir!
This was the first and absolute best of videos that finally made sense to phenomenology
The last portion of this lecture is a tour de force on the split between continental and analytic philosophy - and why we need both. Professor Sugrue's lectures are a wonderful endowment to intellectual life.
A true gift to be joined by fellow seekers of wisdom in listening to a great teacher! May we be ever more eloquent and knowledgeable that we may call ourselves the likes of Sugrue!
Professor, you are, in all likelihood, the most gifted educator I’ve ever encountered. Your passion is palpable and your lectures have enriched my life, immeasurably.
Best video ever on Husserl and Phenomenology. Jackpot!
The examined Sugrue lecture makes life worth living. Almost unbearably exciting, thank you sir for the great work.
Or perhaps the examined life makes Sugrue worth watching?😊
@@tbillyjoerothHello Socrates.
One of the things i like most about Dr. Sugrue is that he conveys everything you need to know, and the intellectual level you need to know it, so clearly. No trudging over and over through the same paragraph youve been trying to comprehend, as is the case with a lot of philosophic texts.
He could add a bit more humor in his talk though, but the passion he shows for some ideas or persons comes through.
Wish we had lecturers like this.
The ending with the comparison between the two traditions was just Wow. Couldn't ask for a clearer introduction into this paradigmatic dilemma, reminding me the yin yang symbol. Thanks!!
Half way through the lecture I thought Sugrue gave a logical though very uncharitable perspective of Husserl that didn't really do his ideas justice. However towards the end Surgue provided a very eloquent account of what Husserl (and phenomenology in general) has to offer. This is a very well balanced, clear and enlightening lecture. Outstanding.
Husserl is, by far, the most brilliant Phenomenologist the world has ever seen, on top of the fact that he single handedly legitmized and pioneered the field continuing Bertano's legacy. Bertano was also Freud's teacher.
Y’all don’t have a lot of sex huh
@@JayyVee41 You surely don’t considering the cute little exaltation you made for Jesus in another comment section. Lucifer will most definitely enjoy the presence of your bottom in his realm of eternal fire. God bless you.
@@mundusinvisibilis6630 I feel sorry for anyone who has to know you in actual life
@Xaviar 77versus99 Yup!
Thank you immensely for your informative and enjoyable lectures.
I am able to keep up and I am learning a lot, but man he makes me a little dizzy how much info he is able to insert into my head with every lecture. I feel like I discovered a a gold mine
What an excellent lecturer. Knows everything and explains it with such clarity and enthusiasm. An adornment to the human race.
Thank you soooo much, Dr. Sugrue! The value of your fantastic lectures is truly immessurable.
This is my favorite Dr. Sugrue lecture!
Absolutely amazing, thank you for the upload. I'm feeling much more comfortable and oriented approaching my course on Husserl now that I've seen this.
Read Husserl in college years ago. I think this video is just as good as the entire course . Excellent stuff
What a wonderful, engaging speaker!
Had never heard of Husseri yet this is the path that was followed- have been learning about my Self for 79 years starting seriously at 27, and now am fascinated about philosophy and history of the world. Another amazing and helpful lecture. Thank you so much.🙏🌹
really good presentation. i also like his fast and clear speaking and also his hectic walking while speaking. what a character!
10:42 I had no idea Freud was also a student of Brentano! 🤯🤯🤯
even alone in my room, at work, or anywhere else, when one of these lectures ends i wanna clap out of respect
Thank you so much professor! I have been struggling with this for a couple of weeks and trying to wrap my mind around some of the essentials in Husserl's work. You have such a gift of clear and interesting lecture.
Stunning clarity, coherence, and fluency.
Priceless speech. It helps me a lot in understanding Husserl. Thank you very much!
Although I got a bit list in the middle of this and found attention difficult, I am always impressed with how he ties things up in the end game. Well done. Empiricism ends up being deeply unsatisfactory for living out the existential realities of our personal experience.
Well, to give the Empiricism its due, we can nowadays register many internal and psychic sensations through scientific experiments like fMRI etc.
Yes,
Honestly I just started learning this shi, so I have no idea what yalls is talkin bout
why we stand together and haughtily discount epistemologies that dont find it necessary to cuddle with the sensibilities of one species on one planet out of trillions is beyond me. i think good metaphysics is supposed to be an ALL-explaining masterpiece, not something to make some monkeys feel warm in their hearts
Thanks for this upload. Explained lifeworld more easily in a 3 min span that my uni did in 2 weeks.
These lectures are great. What a great teacher. Thanks!
I'm only starting to take interest in philosophy and read a brief introductory text about Hussel because I'd like to read Heidegger. This lecture is very useful for me, and I appreciate the person who uploaded this content. I find the professor clear, conveys (at least for me) complex concepts in a succinct manner without taking away depth of reflection and thought. Much regards.
Remarkably clear, coherent, and concise.
Best way to start the year
Amazing lecture, thanks for sharing. Greetings from Mexico.
Brilliant as always
Thank you, this is a most excellent summatiojn of Husserl!
your diction is imprecise, but I understood exactly.
Omg, I can’t believe I can understand this. Thank you sooooo much.
You're a fantastic professor. Thank you.
Yes, thank you. Great overview of his projects.
Mike performed informative cross examination of Husserlian Phenomenology yet, other than hearing oblique comments in the form of questions of a confused understanding towards Husserl’s works. Mike, when he spoke on several oh Husserl’s topics, he built a field of straw-men - to conquer, to backup his bewilderment regarding Husserl’s positions. Mike, your talk is quite enlightening… in the manner that elucidates the swath of folks that hodgepodge their way through Husserl’s published works.
@@Impaled_Onion-thatsmine continue editing
Can you elaborate by what you mean by field of straw men?
This guy is simply amazing.
All this puts me in mind of a famous passage from Hume's Treatise (I'm paraphrasing from memory): Whenever I enter most intimately into that which I call 'myself'...I cannot help but stumble upon some particular perception or other....of love or hate , pain or pleasure....I never manage to catch 'myself' without some perception or other and never manage to experience anything but the perception....and when all my perceptions should be removed...after the dissolution of my body, I cannot conceive what would by further requisite to make me a complete non-entity.
Perhaps the greatest case of self-refutation, notice how many times he says "I" lol
What Hume did not know or acknowledge is that the removal of all perceptions, as for example in sleep, is ultimately temporary since the
Absolute Spirit is eternal and all is conditionally part of IT.
Maybe there's a problem with doing epoche on one's inner being, as thenowchurch kind of indicates below. Maybe the introspection of Hume and Descartes leaves something out because one's inner being, or "mental being," or soul is not fully what it can be without love involving others [it's both one thing AND a group thing...I need to learn more about Husserl's "lebenswelt"]. One wishes to state something flatly and fundamentally on one's own, but actually the transcendental ego is "off" (not fully itself) when it's not connected via these cords to others. In other words, it's not in a state to philosophize! Though of course part of the whole package of "doing philosophy" is sold today academically as something you can do privately and remotely. Without the cost of much taxing involvement with others. There are a lot of types of "others," which could be challenging.
Sorry, re what thenowchurch wrote ABOVE!
He’s such a pleasure to listen to!
This's a such great work, explained all that complex ideas with simply and common words.
Wow! I had no idea I could watch these lectures!! I have about 5 of them on audible this is great to see!!
PLEASE upload the lecture on Plato's Symposium. Prof. Sugrue argues very passionately there.
thank you for the free education
You had me at "are you cogitating with me"🤣
@6:25 Heyy! Isn't Don Quixote a tragedy?
Loved it ❤ RIP Michael 😢
Existential-phrenomenology is now a therapy style, which I've found to be rather refreshing. It seems we've reached that indefinite point in the future :)
I once tried to read Hesserl's book "Ideas" but couldn't make much sense of it. I thought I was dumb. Wish I'd had this lecture back then. It would have made a lot of difference.
Did Prof. Sugrue ever broach Ralph Waldo Emerson? Would like to hear/read his take on the transcendentalists, even if Kant was a big influence.
Fantastic lecture and the last point about the primacy of experience is very well made
14:38 I love how Dr. Sugru dropped this bomb in the middle of nowhere, in one breath: “… the construction of elaborate tautologies is perhaps one of the characteristic philosophical problems of mathematicians who eventually become philosophers…”
This is a great lecture.
(Isnt the accent on the first syllable in Husserl?) Very stimulating and helpful lectures, free of cant.
I love the continental vs analytic comparison during the last 10 minutes here
May I ask is the eloquent professor in the video the youtuber himself? because the quality of the video tells me it's from 20 years ago but it was uploaded 3 years ago?
I had a difficult time understanding Husserl, Thanks to the professor you are incredibly easy to understand
Very well done lecture. Definitely worth a listen.
My friend got his degree in philosophy at Fordham. He had a professor, John Drummond I believe, who said that husserl is not an idealist. And apparently Drummond is an expert on husserl, even wrote a dictionary of sorts regarding the neologisms.
So, it seems if Drummond is correct, if husserl is not an idealist, then that presumption may lead to errors in interpreting husserl. And sugrue I think mentioned husserl as an idealist, though I’d have to listen again.
It's a worthy point. The first step would be to get "Idealism" defined: "In philosophy, idealism is a diverse group of metaphysical views which all assert that "reality" is in some way indistinguishable or inseparable from human perception and/or understanding, that it is in some sense mentally constructed." From this sense, it seems Husserl is an Idealist.
@@brynbstn but wouldn’t that be just be smuggling in idealism? I’m not too savvy on husserl, but I’m sure he’d say I don’t know what’s mentally constructed because I’ve done this bracketing, the epoche, and I’m just studying experience as it’s given to us. Would that be a valid reply?
@@tatsumakisempyukaku Perhaps, but it seems conventional now to put Husserl in the Idealist camp. You can split hairs about it though - - Check out Wikipedia as a starting point.
@@brynbstn convention could be wrong.
@@brynbstn Husserl called himself a transcendental idealist, but made clear that idealism in this term is understood in a merely methodological way, not metaphysical.
I think (not totally sure) that Husserl just like the Vienna Circle would say that the realism/idealism debate is meaningless. Phenomenology is concerned with meaning and how meaning is constructed (that's the sole reason for Husserl being idealistic), so Husserl would say that phenomenology is about finding out what we mean when we speak about spacial-temporal things, an existing world, etc. and how we can make this way of speaking radically intelligible, proofing that there are good reasons for these language conventions (this is where he's different to Vienna Circle: No, we can't choose between idealist and realist language like we want). How things itself fundamentally are is on a totally different paper - both realist and idealist stances are combinable with Husserl's basic insights and ideas.
Superb lecture!
wow...this is breathtaking. Wish I could be half as articulate.
It would be better if you talked twice as slow.
Great job! Thank you
Dr. Sugrue reminds me of a thoroughbred race horse. He begins his lectures in a leisurely trot and then ,as his remarkable mind fully engages and gallops, his tongue can barely keep up.
I think he missed the point. He argues that we cannot be sure what that person has experienced is "correct" knowledge. But this is a general epistemological problem. How can I know that what is written on wikipedia is correct? By checking the sources. But how can I know that the sources are right? This leads us to Meno's paradox and it is not just a problem of phenomenology.
Let's say that you want to research whether people with dementia have the ability to understand emotions. The typical, scientific way to approach zhis is to do an experiment. E.g. we show people with dementia a range of photos and let them sort the photos based on the emotion. Now it turns out that people with dementia do not seem to be able to understand emotions - at least based on this research. But if you ask caregivers they will tell you that this does not at all reflect their expierience. They will tell you that people with dementia seem to be often well tuned to your emotions. They will tell you they see it in their eye contact, how they touch you, how they embrace you. Nurses will also tell you that they can sense with whom that person has a good feeling with and with whom don't. Now you might question the professional nurse: how do I know that your phenomenological experience is "correct"?
Perhaps you see the danger. We tend to believe the "scientific evidence" and treat people based on that evidence. So when the speaker says why do I need phenomenonology to tell me those self evident things, then perhaps you remember that science brought forth ideas like behaviorism that recommended to teach kids like dogs though behavioral conditioning. Then perhaps things like empathy are not as self-evident as the speaker beliefs. Or, said differently, they are often so self-evident that they are simply ignored from the philosophical scientific discourse and we research things that are totally detached from reality.
The point is that there is knowledge that is hard to understand and to proof through traditional scientific methodologies and it is dangerous to act upon scientific "discoveries" that neglect this fact.
If you study horses, your presence alone will alter how that horse behaves based on how you appear to that horse. An expert "horse whisperer" may tell you that you messed up the experiment because your presence appeared aggressive and that has made the horse anxious. As a result, it acted differently from how it would act if you were not present. Now what kind of messy, hard to describe knowledge is it, that the "horse whisperer" has? Its certainly something that we have difficulties with formalizing in the traditional scientific domain that Husserl argued against.
So, I would argue that this circularity he accuses Husserl of is not just a problem of Husserl, but a general philosophical problem and we see it right in the the critique of the speaker. We justify and build rationalist theories and methods based on rationalist theories and methods and end up with ideas how we treat each other and our environment in ways that do not make sense.
The implications are obvious. This changes how we treat patients, how we raise kids, how we treat and see workers, in what buildings we live and work in, how we treat and socialize prison inmates, how we try to prevent that people become prison inmates in the first place, etc.
Thank you Professor!!!
Wow, I didn't know anything about Husserl before but he sounds very much like me in thought. I see things in an uncannily similar way. I didn't know I was a Continental philosopher. I refused to read philosophers' books before because I didn't want their thoughts to affect my hunt for my own ideology. I only took ethics. That I arrived at such identical thoughts leads me to believe there is some validation for these ideas despite the stance Dr. Sugrue takes. I think it is best to view it as.... the goal of minimalizing the rational aspects of the world in order to operate in a more efficient way. A way of connecting and condensing that hopes to move us towards higher concepts and loosen the limits of what is. We separate and classify sometimes to our own detriment. Once this notion is grasped, then people can focus on living rather than processing and reacting to the world around them. There would be fewer negative psychological effects overall because ideally, they would already know themselves at this point, then they can live in a way that makes them happy and can delve into their emotional sides when it is called for as opposed to reacting to external factors that wouldn't otherwise cause an emotional response....Either that or Husserl has a flawed aspect. I am not sure since this is my first introduction to both parties. To me, anything past the limits of what can be said is then what I call the Tao {the known, the unknown, and the combination of both, and is a part of the spiritual realm. There is an aspect of intuition. If there wasn't then my ideologies would not be so close without ever knowing anything about it. All stemming from a sort of intuitional knowledge.
...what "you" call "the Tao"? Really? Please clean up your language and say that "Tao" is a word used for millennia in China for a philosophical concept...and that if you asked 10 different knowledgeable experts on the subject to define "Tao", they would probably all give different answers. IOW please acknowlege that "Tao" has no universally accepted meaning, but that it serves as a kind of placeholder for many different people's different spiritual intuitions. And that, by using it, you intend to somehow give weight to your own (undelineated) use of the word, or to import associations from Chinese philosophy. I ask respectfully. (Your phraseology implies that you invented the word.)
@@Robb3348 I know where it comes from and what it refers to. My statement does not imply I invented the concept. I am simply giving name to the nameless. You know what it is so clearly you didn't misinterpret my words as to mean I invented it. You are merely bothered by the way I wrote a comment. I ask that you reflect upon your own comment and ask if it is written to perfection. This is afterall a technology forum, not a published article. I put only about 5% effort into the comments I make on here. While I do not mind changing something someone finds disrespectful. I think in this case you are reading too much into it.
After watching this lecture, we are biased towards skipping the reading of Husserl’ works altogether. Is there nothing to be gained from learning Phenomenology? In science, even a failed experiment adds to our overall understanding. Why not in the humanities? Can it truly be that Husserl will only lead us down a dead end?
Without explaining the ideas of Phenomenology, we have to simply take Sugrue’s word that Phenomenology is a waste of time. The level of depth this video delves is 101. Yet, Husserl wrote prolifically on the topic. Even if it is exhaustive, it still could lead to stimulation of new paths of thought in the student. Professor Sugrue took that from us with his own conclusions.
a great lecture, thank you.
I think what often gets missed with Husserl is that is not so much he wanted to find this mystery essence to the human soul as such. Its more to do with how we can become conscious of our time in this world. We literally spend so much time of our precious lives inside the confinement of our minds as opposed to actually being *in* the world. We become merely *of* it. I kniw this is sounding like Heideggers Dasein but he clearly took something Husserl could have easily taken and ran with it. Husserl wanted to put it across that to perceive of something primordially in the physical world, is to both become aware of it and perceive of it - thus, think it is true, that it exists. The body cannot conceive of when a thought is reflecting a thought or when a thought reflects physical reality as the same cognitive factulties are at play within our inner perception, as they are outwardly. Its so easy for time to slip away from us in this sense and we become so overwhelmed with speculative thoughts of the past or future or what we think we can rely on intuitively to be the case with something.
I think Husserl strayed from this very important factor of his work, leaving it to Heidegger to emply. A lot of his ideas got lost in the breadth of his work.
It would be interesting to see (if there was a way. But hey! perhaps there is!) When we die, we get some kind of print out statistics of how much time we actually spent inside out heads or on our screens in comparison to how much time was spent actually engaging with our immediate experience of the world. How many hours of conversations were spent in total on the phone, in text, on video calls etc and how may hours were spent engaged in genuine face to face conversation.
Husserls work may not have been as recognised as he would have liked during his day but the more technology advances and the more time people spend experiemcing the world second hand on their screens.....it will very much be revived into todays mainstream world
This is great. Thank you. Are you planning to upload professor Sugrue's Machiavelli lectures?
Thank you.
I understand that the family is handling this channel. How is Michael's health?
How old is he? Couldn't find it.
good point @21:57 very few examples in Husserl's work of actually doing this
Love that jacket analogy.
excellent content
- Drinks from a cup
- Frowns
- "Now..."
Love it
I took basically the entire same course but from a more European perspective with mainly European professors, although our main philosphy professor was a Fulbright scholar. Its interesting to see the differences in interpretation
Sugrue is legendary.
QUESTION: Do you have professor Sugrue's lecture on existentialism in the "Great Minds" series titled " The Existential Insight Sartre and Heidegger" on your list of future uploads? Thanks.
yes, we do
Please upload some lecture on Sartre if possible.
You are never going to find a better introduction to Husserl's thought and philosophy than here. The one problem is that Dr. Sugrue does not really talk very much about Husserl's concept of the Life World and how some of his followers have developed it. He drops the notion of "intersubjectivity" and quickly abandons it right at the conclusion of his talk.
No slides. No blackboard. THis man really likes to be a teacher. Everything is in his brain... or mind if it s a concern.
Truly a gem. Soo much better than the commercial "introductory" tiktok-like vids or debate-bro shoutfests that "philosophytube" has become.
I have recently started reading Husserl and decided to check out this lecture.
I must say, that despite the fact that the professor is obviously knowledgable and highly intellectual, he seems to not understand Husserl, and he even said so that he had troubles understanding his theories in this lecture. It is true that it's not an easy read and I do come back to the same paragraphs time and time again because the idea keeps eluding me, but the fact is that phenomenology is not exactly "just another type of philosophy".
Yes, the idea of the essences is hard, but it has nothing to do with the language and the reference to Wittgenstein is not apropos.
One example I can give based on what I've read and learned so far: all empirical sciences (like physics) base their theories and discoveries on Eidetic (or Ideal, Essential) sciences like logic, and moreover, the empirical sciences cannot exist without the Eidetic sciences, e.g. you can't study the outer world without having an Ideal framework to deal with it, like the laws of logic (not empirical), mathematical axioms (math is an eidetic/ideal science, not empirical). So in short, the study of the outer world must be based on some non-empirical axioms.
It's just one of the things Husserl discusses.
Cette vidéo rend les ancêtres fiers.
8:42 is it me, or do people attempt other-mind-reading often ("you did it because.. Why were you {emotion}" and so on. And then I--know--it was not the case. I tell the person, and sometimes they even do a follow up mind reading attempt 'you lie' which I equally know I didn't and they could never know for certain while I can.
3:18 I am not certain that the "knower [necessarily] preceeds the known". I would suggest the existence of self and the knowledge of self are synonymous. Hence, thinking is proof of existence. At least, that is my interpretation of Descartes.
Role of poetry in verbally communicating internal experience in a precise way?
as a person leaning on the side of Empiricism, I always struggles to make sense of poetry.
To me it sounds vague, nebulous and even nonsensical... 🤔🤷♂️
@@benbell9170 : It attempts to convey meanings at several different levels. Think of it like a piece of Bach counterpoint, but with only a single line of notes. Poetry has to be read with close attention. And with the heart more than the head. With the left brain more than the right brain.
In which way Hussrel’s project was a failure?
“The very idea of the *logos* is that it’s *communicable.* “ - wow 😮 he is right.
Strangely enough, this felt like the most enlightenment liberal intro clip I have ever seen.
Brilliant of course but the true genius here is the advent into modern timed of the thing called UA-cam..
Times*
That works very well in practice, but how does it work in theory?