Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes From Underground | Intellectuals Inertia and Negativity | Core Concepts
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This is a video in my new Core Concepts series -- designed to provide students and lifelong learners a brief discussion focused on one main concept from a classic philosophical text and thinker.
This Core Concept video focuses on Fyodor Dostoevsky's short work of existentialist literature, Notes from Underground, and specifically discusses the narrator's depiction of the 19th century intellectual as a person who is caught up in reflection, and unable to develop a distinctive identity.
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You can find a translation of the text I am using for this sequence on Dostoevsky's Notes From Underground - amzn.to/2XgL5DD
#Dostoevsky #Underground #Existentialism #Logic #Ethics #Politics #Society #Philosophy #Literature #Perversity
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Ecclesiastes 1:18
For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief.
Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment is the best novel I have ever read. Truly changed my life. Dostoyevsky has a powerful message and should be mandatory in universities everywhere. Great video, keep it up!
I'm more partial to The Demons/The Possessed myself.
Glad you enjoyed the video
As a man of uncertainty and intellect, I wrote and deleted this comment over and over time again : ) , anyway, what I want to say is that I am too one of those whose lives are truly changed by crime and punishment.
How did it change your life?
@@zacharypayne4080 if he were to attempt to lay it out, he would not do it justice as he would have to make conscious all the things, and even then fall short. Though perhaps not knowing this, he would assume the simpler explanation is the whole picture and therefore become underwhelmed. The explanation/simplification will take away from the work. I don't think it can be done justice in the TH-cam comments-
@@goofyahhh254 can you give a few examples just to give the rest of us an idea. Don’t worry about falling short or giving an incomplete answer, I think I can speak for most in saying we only expect a short, simple, even incompetent idea. Nobody goes to TH-cam comment sections expecting some overwhelming perfect epiphany.
"I repeat with emphasis, all direct persons and men of action are active precisely because they are stupid and limited." -Notes from the Underground
Dostoevsky is the best. Thanks for the brief lesson.
You're welcome
It's soul shaking to find yourself described accurately in one of the great works.....
You can't even claim uniqueness....
I'm type cast as the underground man and I can't get out.....
Maybe don't assume that where you are in the present is the only possibility, and find another work to model yourself atfer
One of my favorite TH-cam channels talking about my favourite author, what a treat! Thanks Dr.
You're welcome!
@@GregoryBSadler Out of curiosity, have you read his short story "The dream of a Ridiculous Man"? I think it touches a lot of themes that he discusses in Notes from the Underground.
@@DiegishT I have indeed. Went through a "read the Russians" phase back in undergrad
Great analysis, this is one of my favorite works of literature. Glad I found your channel, thank you for your work :)
Currently reading Crime & Punishment, will come back and watch your analysis of that later if you have it on your channel.
The next Dostoevsky work I'd tackle would be a better one than C&P, The Possessed/The Demons - really his best work, I think
I seriously love your videos so much thank you for posting them !!!!
Glad you enjoy them!
Great commentary Dr Sadler, I would gladly say i have read the "notes from underground" exactly 11 years ago, and I must say it was quite revolutionary in term of changing something in me paradigmatically, and your late comments on this short novel just proves it more. Thanks sir
You can see the connections between this work, Kierkegaard's own discussions of leveling and the crowd, and Nietzsche's discussions of ressentiment
Now this is really good! Feels like I've actually learnt something about my self from this lecture. I think. That's the problem with doubt.
Glad you enjoyed it
Yessssssssssss
Thank you Greg! You're the best!
You're welcome!
Thanks for this, took me a long time to understand this book and you helped
Glad it was useful for you
I think this new series of shorter videos could be very successful, since the longer series take more effort to get into and stick with. Satisfying analysis of this amazing little book.
You do realize I've got over 500 of these at this point. . .
Thank you!
Of the person of whom all things are possible, nothing is probable.
Great lecture. I remember the passage about someone vacillating about his life's pain, but not actually experiencing true pain. He was probably talking about the nobles/intellectuals..
Glad you enjoyed it
Well done. He wrote this work not long back from penal servitude and one wonders how much of the
"mouse" applies to Dostoevsky and how much he saw in others. The man had resilience. He does not seem to be much like the "underground man" in the book. Dostoevsky survived prison, exile, poverty and the early death of spouse, child and sibling. He had epilepsy, a gambling addiction and
a love/hate relationship with the city of St. Petersburg. He also had a Hall of Fame work ethic to write so many fabulous books and to do so under conditions that had little in the way of domestic tranquility.
Hahaha! Well, he did work hard, but he also got his family into those debts that required him to work hard, so I think some of the blame for the chaos of his household rests on his shoulders
This was great 100%, thankyou
You're welcome - glad you enjoyed it
Thankyou, this filled in a few gaps for me. Dostoevsky is my introduction to philosophy
You’re welcome
I wonder how demanding the creation of this character has been for Dostoevksy, time after time i read and listen to this book i'm amazed how void this character is, yet filled with so many things. When i try to conceptualize such a person it seems to be filled with so many contradictions that i couldn't do it (not that i'm very good at creative arts).
We all have contradictions to one degree or another - the question is whether we can make sense of them or not
Good stuff. Thanks
You're welcome
Wow...this lecture really clarifies some things for me. Thank you Dr. Sadler! Your lectures are a breath of fresh air.
You're welcome!
I saw this right after the other video on the same work, focusing on pleasure. It's very interesting to me how these themes were explored, albeit from a different perspective, by Hesse in his work "Narziß und Goldmund".
There are certainly more differences than analogies in the way the two authors perceive these concepts. I was wondering though, how much of it is due to the times in which they wrote (65 years apart), and how much of it is due to different life experiences?
Sometimes accepting that just good enough is enough, but not really enough, or good.
Sloterdijk had some interesting comparisons to the intellectual defined by Dostoevsky. Basically an angel who does not have a message. Also the turning of the Siren tempting us to disaster into just a general feeling the world is terrible and about to end. All abandoning the notion of being in the presence of something grand or meaningful.
Thank you
You're welcome!
The intellectual paralysis somewhat similar in concept to Kierkegaard's dizziness of freedom or as Nietzsche's staring void.
I'm glad you said "similar" rather than equating them. I think you're right
After finishing the book, I looked up some interpretation and most paint the underground man as a horrible character who is all wrong about the world. So happy I found this one. Much closer to how I percieved it. There is a lot more sutlety in the dualism of intellectual vs. person of action than most interpretations give credit for.
Well, now you know you can basically disregard the sources that have such black and white interpretations
great video! would you say there’s a similarity in the underground man’s feelings of inertia to esther greenwood’s fig tree analogy in sylvia plath’s the bell jar? since she’s basically showing fear of making decisions, fear of missed opportunities, struggle to find self-realization, it reminded me of the paralyzation given to intellectuals. this could however just be me grasping at straws with the little bit of exposure i have to literature lol but yeah the bell jar is one of my favorite books so i couldn’t help but think of chapter 7 there
Haven’t read Bell Jar since high school
Hopefully more videos on literary fiction that is philosophical in the future. Great vid professor!
You mean like this entire series? th-cam.com/play/PL4gvlOxpKKIiuo3yYSBeOsrT-iSHvDRUb.html
@@GregoryBSadler I'm sure there's great appreciation for those. I can't really say that most of those writers but a few are in the same category as Dostoevsky, but nonetheless I hope to see more of the classics delved into in the future. Thank you for the recommendation though.
@@1872959 Well, at least from my perspective, I'd say that Tolkien, Dick, LeGuin, Lovecraft - they're all equals to Dostoevsky
Othello in Hamlet's situation would not have made the same mistakes Hamlet made, and Hamlet in Othello's situation would not have made the mistakes Othello made. To reply or not to reply, that is the question.
Respect and love from India🇮🇳 💕❤
thanks!
Wow i started reading this in a different language (that i happen to speak) and found it to be rambling bunk. Apparently, It went over my head I guess.
Thanks for the lesson Dr. but can you please elaborate more on the significance of the title to the entire novel….Thanks
It's discussed in the text itself, so you'll want to reread it
What are your thoughts on the brothers karamazov?
You mean on an entire novel?
You might use the search function in TH-cam
Which English translation are you reading from in the video? I have the Michael Katz translation and I can tell it's quite different than yours.
MacAndrew. Should be "different" in terms of word choice and phrasing, not in terms of ideas
@@GregoryBSadler thank you
Hello! I have just found your channel and I am so happy for that! I am a student at the faculty of letters, but I want to initiate myself into philosophy. Which books would you recommend for beginners? :)
If you're interested in Dostoevsky I would recommend starting with a more structured work like crime & punishment. It's fantastic, one if the best books I've read.
@@jimmykosman, I read most of the works of Dostoevsky. I am referring particular to the domain of philosophy :D
@@alexandrarugea4773 Oh alright, I'm still making my way though them. I'm reading some of Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism at the moment. It's quite drastic and extreme in some ways and a lot of people condone it for that, but I think there are quite a few interesting and important concepts in her theories. But I'm still only 18 years old and I've heard that it's very attractive for people my age, so I don't know if my judgement is really all that realistic, I still have a lot to learn myself ofcourse
Thank you for the title and keep up with the good work! I really appreciate that at your age, you display such interest in art and knowledge! Best regards!
@@alexandrarugea4773 Thanks, I will. Maybe you have some recommendations for some great literary works?
With high quality over 500 "Core concepts" episodes, this is one of best serials in the english speaking world ;). Having goog scriptwriters definitely help.
One issue, if I can. Introduction from 0:00 to maybe 0:40 looks quite old now, with video and audio with much lower quality than rest of it.
I don't use scriptwriters. I lecture just as I do everywhere else, with minimal notes at most
@@GregoryBSadler This is part of the joke. I was thinking that it will be obviously, that scriptwriters are: Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Hegel, MacIntyre, etc. Which is very good set of writers indead ;).
интеллигенции!
"Sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought." Something like that. It has certainly made me sick. (Oh, the nausea.) Perhaps I don't think well enough. Maybe that's the problem. I'm not sure. Nor am I sure that it matters.
Give it a bit more thought, and see if it sorts itself out
So does Camus borrow this idea in his book "The Rebel"? Isn't the rebel described by Camus just the intellectual described by Dostoevsky?
When you read The Rebel, you'll see that there is no one single type of "the rebel" - there's a number of different types
There seems to be some similarities between notes from the underground and Bukowski’s “Barfly”
And those are?
NEETs vs Normies
hahaha
Sorry I have another question:
Is Dostoevsky using the word "intellectual" in a condemnatory fashion, given the main character's intertia and his spitefulness?
More descriptive, I'd say. Intellectuals, broadly speaking, are going to be people who engage in reflection more than others. That is going to lead to some bad effects, in the current age, in the view of the narrator
I don't understand the context or the scope of this work, but do you think this was a serious commentary on modern society or was he being sarcastic when he broke everyone into two groups of people?
Both
"too great lucidity is a disease"
too woke
Wokeness would only be one form of that
Video just ends
It ends when its done
@@GregoryBSadler can't get enough♡
is "intelctual" supposed to be a tongue in cheek term here?
No
hmmm... that's so strange given the long history of poltically active intelectuals. I might have to watch the video again then.
@@UnconsciousQualms No idea why "politically active" and "tongue in cheek" would be connected here
Because my understanding was that he's saying that a true intelectual can't do anything, but sit on the sideline and think and overthink. I will just watch the video again.
@@UnconsciousQualms He's not working with the notion or distinction of a "true intellectual"
KIRKAGAARD'S ANGST PERSONIFIED
Why are you shouting?
how sweet to be idiot - neil innes
Jordan peterson
Is superficial garbage. There, finished your elliptical post
@@GregoryBSadler you don't like his philosophical takes?
@@ljph_1995 I think I've been pretty clear about that in AMA after AMA
@@GregoryBSadler sorry I haven't seen any of those yet