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Mengzi: The Second Sage and the Goodness of Human Nature
Slide 1: Who Was Mengzi? Alright, let’s start with something that might surprise you: the person we’re about to study believed something almost nobody in power wanted to hear. And he spent his entire life traveling from kingdom to kingdom, trying to convince rulers of it anyway. His name was Mengzi – you might know…
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The Human Cost of War: A Commentary on Illiad book VI
Book VI is the most intimate book in the Iliad so far, and one of the most celebrated in all of world literature. After four books of sustained divine intervention — gods descending, spears deflected, heroes lifted from the field — the Olympians are almost entirely absent here. This is a book of human beings:…
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The Aristeia of Diomedes: A Commentary on Illiad Book V
Book V is the longest book in the Iliad so far, and in some ways the most structurally extravagant. It is dominated by the aristeia of Diomedes — a term describing a hero’s supreme moment of martial excellence, in which he operates at the very peak of his powers, seemingly unstoppable, killing everything before him.…
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Iamblichus: The Architect of Theurgical Neoplatonism
Slide 1: Origins and Context Alright, let’s talk about someone who doesn’t get nearly enough attention in philosophy courses, but who absolutely deserves it. Iamblichus of Chalcis. And I want to start by really situating you in his world, because understanding the context is crucial for understanding why his philosophy took the shape it did.…
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Plotinus: The Architect of Neoplatonism
Slide 1: Title Slide – Plotinus: The Architect of Neoplatonism Alright, let’s talk about one of the most mind-bending philosophers you’ve probably never heard of. Plotinus. Third century CE. And here’s what’s wild about this guy – he took Plato’s already abstract ideas about reality and said, “You know what? We can go deeper.” Think…
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The Philosophy of Confucius: Foundations of Harmony and Virtue
Slides 1-2 (Who Was Confucius + Historical Context) Intro we are stepping back over 2,500 years to a time of profound turbulence. Imagine a China fractured into warring states, where the old social contracts had dissolved, and violence was the primary language of politics. It was the Spring and Autumn period—a time when the very…
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The Breaking of the Peace: A Commentary on Illiad Book IV
The Breaking of the Peace: A Commentary on Iliad Book IV Book IV is the pivot on which the entire poem turns from the possibility of resolution to the certainty of prolonged catastrophe. The duel of Book III offered a legitimate mechanism for ending the war; Book IV destroys it. What makes this destruction so…
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Aristotle: The Architect of Western Thought
Slide 1: Aristotle – The Architect of Western Thought Okay, here’s something that should blow your mind right from the start: we’re about to talk about someone who basically invented how we think. Not what we think about this or that topic, but the actual structure of rational thought itself. Aristotle. 384 to 322 BCE.…
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Plato: The Architect of Western Philosophy
The Dawn of Philosophy (Slides 1-2) Slide 1: Opening – “The Architect of Western Philosophy” Alright, here’s a question that should bother you: Why are we still reading a guy who died 2,347 years ago? Think about that for a second. We don’t use ancient Greek medicine. We don’t navigate by their astronomy. We don’t…
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The Duel That Should Have Ended Everything: A Commentary on Iliad Book III
Book III is one of the most emotionally concentrated books in the poem. After the vast military panorama of Book II — the thousands of ships, the hundreds of placenames, the massing of forces — Homer suddenly narrows the focus to a single combat between two men for one woman. The war, in theory, could…