Course: Reality Bites: Introduction to Metaphysics
Length: 7 modules, 10 hours total
School/platform: Erasmus University, Rotterdam, Netherlands/Coursera
Instructor: Tim de Mey
Quote:
Speculative metaphysics is challenging, but this course will whet your appetite for it, because it explains fundamental metaphysical problems and views in terms of what you can find in your kitchen and what happens in it when you cook and enjoy food. Here are the 8 bites on the menu.
– The first module 1 explains that metaphysics is about the ingredients and recipes of the world, i.e., which kinds of entities exist and how they relate to one another.
– Modules 2 and 3 invite you to reflect on whether the properties of ingredients – such as their shape and weight – are separate from and if so, how they come together in the ingredients.
– Modules 4 to 7 are about cooking: its most important ingredient is time and most cooking consists in causing changes to the ingredients over time. Yet some ingredients persist: although they undergo changes, they remain the same. Moreover, cooking minimally involves putting two or more ingredients together, so that they compose a whole. Hence modules 4 to 7 deal with time, causation, persistence and composition respectively.
– Finally, the last module touch on the smells, tastes and other qualitative aspects of our experiences when enjoying food.
This is my second foray into the philosophy moocs presented by Dr. Tim De Mey of Erasmus University. I was a bit uncertain about the first one on epistemology, but I think I’m getting the hang of it.
Here the topic was existence. That sounds simple enough, until you get to something like: do holes exist? What about color? And then there’s time. I recently joked around with my blogging buddy Jake about time being merely a construct that he could ignore if it bothered him, but it turns out there are lots of theories about time and existence. The Ship of Theseus provided a convenient way to look at theories of persistence: are you the same person that you were when you were five years old? Causality as well turns out to be a lot more complicated than commonly thought once we start looking at it in depth. That seems to be the entire business of metaphysics: messing with common sense until nothing can be taken for granted, least of all what exists and what doesn’t. It’s great fun.
Each module opens with a brief teaser based on cooking (if you cook an onion, is it the same onion as it was when it was raw? At what point does a group of veggies and spices become curry?), then moves to two or three segments of lectures on the topic at hand. An optional discussion question – which is pretty useless since the discussion forums are ghost towns, a question I raised weeks ago in the Epistemology class is still unanswered – and a quiz consisting of two multiple-choice questions with unlimited attempts, round out the material. An exam of ten questions appears in the last module.
I found the same three problems as I had with Epistemology: first, it’s difficult to organize the material in a way that makes sense and provides for good retention; second, the lecture transcripts are horrible, particularly in terms of sentence structure and proper names; (while annoying, I have to admit it made for some interesting research opportunities); and third, I wish there were more quiz questions, since they were helpful in getting the material organized in my mind.
If the images provided seem sparse and repetitious, that’s because there aren’t any real images in these moocs. That’s a drawback. When I watch the videos by Carneades or Wireless Philosophy on these topics, I get visual clues via drawings, diagrams, and sometimes just arrangements of words that helps with comprehension. Here, there’s just the professor and the teaser scenes. Maybe I’m spoiled by soft USAian methods, but I find the visual cues helpful. And they make for more interesting posts.
In spite of those misgivings, I find there’s a kind of charm to these Erasmus University moocs. They offer a different perspective to the philosophy moocs I’ve found taught by USAian schools, and bring in other materials. And, as I’ve said before, they exist, and they are totally free, with no paywalled quizzes. I’m game to take on the third one on thought experiments.
I have to admit that I lied above (or, as I prefer to think of it, I paraphrased in the interests of simplicity) when I said it was my second DeMey mooc. In between Epistemology and Ontology, I took “The Politics of Skepticism” led by Dr. De Mey and another professor. I didn’t post about it because it didn’t entirely make sense to me; it seemed to me the lectures, the readings, and the discussion questions for the first half of the course were unrelated to each other. I may go over it again at some point when I’ve completed Dr. De Mey’s other courses, and see if it makes more sense.
Course: 
I first discovered Michael Puett through Harvard’s ChinaX series when I took the first few parts of it about four years ago. I’m not sure what it is that makes him such a wonderful speaker: he’s not dynamic, or funny, or even particularly attractive (hey, we all go there sometimes), at least in ways we usually think of in terms of great speakers. But I sometimes just look for videos on youtube where he’s explaining something, even something I don’t understand (Chinese history, rather than philosophy, is his academic area, though the two aren’t all that separable). In this particular course, he has a somewhat Mr. Rogers vibe, and it’s mesmerizing. And soothing. ASMR for philosophy geeks.
Chinese thought, and as someone who’s had some prior exposure to the basics of Chinese thought, I liked it as a quick review of the high points. The lectures seemed a bit repetitive, but for someone encountering the material for the first time, I suspect that would be a plus.
philosopher under discussion. For example, the dinner table or a business meeting can become a ritual space; playing a musical instrument or a sport can, after a lot of focused practice, become spontaneous. So it, too, serves as reinforcement for the particular vocabulary.
Course: 
The first course on the Hebrew Bible was more or less formal lecture and covered the expected material: the J, P, D, and E sources, which prophets were Northern Kingdom and which were Southern, who was pre-exile, post-exile, and trans-exile, etc. The instructor demonstrated great fondness for the texts, and made convincing arguments that, contrary to later opinion in Christian culture, Judaism was not all about law and rules. The origin of some of the most familiar Biblical stories in ancient mythologies from around the middle East, the changing covenant with God from suzerainty to a more Zionist approach to the less concrete displayed in Job are outlined, along with the history that provoked these changes. I always thought the book of Job was one of the earliest in the Bible; turns out, the basic story is very old, but the philosophical construction reflects a much later period in ancient Israel’s history.
The New Testament instructor took a more casual, interactive approach, injecting frequent humor and asking for input from the in-person class. The formation of the Canon was a running theme, as was the wide variety of Christianities that existed in the first two centuries and the texts that were winnowed from what has now become the standard Bible. Viewing the Bible as a library, rather than as a single book, was a helpful way of dealing with some of the contradictions found between different books. Different views of Jesus as seen through different Gospels – including a few that aren’t in most contemporary Christian canons – were lined up with possible authorships. Paul’s letters were thoroughly covered, as well as the pretend-Paul letters and other letters that show various types of Christianity in the first couple of centuries after Christ.
Libertarianism. Instead, it focuses on philosophical libertarianism, which is related to non-determinism and the potential of different outcomes for different choices. The second level of this is to become a different kind of chooser, a bit more sophisticated kind of free will, in which we can decide to learn a language or a musical instrument and thus open up those choices, or follow a particular way of life and make our choices there. Sound complicated? It isn’t, really, but it helps to take the first couple of weeks of the course to see the ways this works.
The first week presented an overview of determinism vs non-determinism, and the general outline of free will within that schema. Week two continued with a philosophical approach to the classifications of free will. The remaining four weeks focused more on neuroscience, and how our brains have evolved to allow consideration of choices, as well as random fluctuations that prevent determinism. 
In any case it was seriously interesting all the way through. If some of the material should seem overwhelming, don’t worry; the graded questions are looking for broader concepts. A set of non-graded questions follows up each lecture, with a quiz at the end of the week drawn from those same questions. There’s reallly no excuse to miss any of those questions, in other words. They account for 75% of the course grade, with discussion counting for 25%. Since the passing grade is 70%, it’s very possible to pass the course without doing the discussion. I avoided discussion deliberately, as there was a particularly argumentative student who basically disagreed with everything, and I just didn’t want to deal with it. 
I’ve taken, what, four or five introductory logic courses now; each one is a little different. Some are more comprehensive, some focus on different things. This one kept things at the simplest level and featured lots of very clear explanations and examples, plus three different modes of grading. As a first course in logic, I think it might work quite well. And then, it included my favorite: truth trees! Some of the other topics included Venn and Euler diagrams, types of deductive argument structures and fallacies, and inductive arguments. Most of the emphasis is on recognizing these elements in actual, if simple, arguments.
The last week was devoted to production of an argument, with steps for design. The structure was useful, but there’s no way to practice. This is the Achilles’ heel of many humanities moocs: once they gave up on real peer-assessment, there’s really no way to create an assignment for this. The discussion forums would be an option, but, somewhat surprisingly, there was little activity, beyond the initial meet-and-greet, even though the instructor provided feedback for questions.
anywhere else: language, mathematics, and computational logic. The Stanford course on Coursera is tailored to computer science; better minds than mine have hated it as much as I did. But for anyone looking for a place to start, this introductory mooc would fit the bill. And trust me: the more you go over it, the easier it gets.
There wasn’t any reading Sartre, it’s true, and rather than reading chapters of Kierkegaard or Nietzsche, there were nutshell versions of pertinent ideas. But a great deal of work went into putting together a course that showed applications and consequences of those ideas in the form of film, literature, and music. And, yes, discussion questions.
permission is almost always granted for this sort of thing, the process – even if it’s just putting up a credits list of public domain items – still requires significant work. A lot of care went into this course.
carefully designed and executed. I just have a preference for the dry, straight lectures and reading assignments so many people take courses like this to avoid. I knew what it was going in, and I’m glad I had the opportunity to try something a little different. And for those who would rather bypass the dry lectures and voluminous reading, it offers an experiential way to encounter some of the basic ideas of existentialism. 
Course: 
As it turned out, the mooc was a broad overview of the major themes and techniques, consisting of a total of about 2 hours of videos in 15-minute stints. The additional work included annotating the poem for specific features (highlight indications it is an Epic, that Satan is a hero in the opening books, etc). This required using an annotation package that afforded the opportunity to see others’ annotations. I hate this sort of thing, so I skipped it. The other coursework was mandatory discussion posts, which I also skipped. 
fact, an extreme radical, since he called for beheading King Charles I, which eventually happened in the English Civil War. And, oh yeah, he had daddy issues, one of the recurrent phrases in Overly Sarcastic Production’s very sarcastic (and irreverent, and hilarious, but not inaccurate) 
Courses:
The first mooc examines a pair of manuscripts describing the Second Temple in Jerusalem, and the Tabernacle (a temporary and portable version used before the Temple was built, particularly during the forty years the Hebrews wandered around the Sinai). The second mooc looks at a codex with three different manuscripts on medieval medical practices, and uses these as a way to trace the flow of ideas from Galen to the Islamicate to Europe. 
end-page glossaries include local dialect vocabularies for practitioners who need to buy these substances from Italian vendors. 
renowned physician/philosopher Avicenna came along and wrote an even better text, overshadowing Majusi’s work and pushing him into relative historic obscurity. 
pertinent sections of the manuscript are embedded in the videos. Links to the complete digitized manuscripts from the Penn collection are hard to find, but they’re there (check the Syllabus). 
I almost missed these offerings entirely. edX hasn’t publicized the current Tabernacle course at all (I saw it on a tweet by Class Central), and it was only through the Syllabus that I learned about the Jewish Medicine course. That’s a shame, since they’re terrific. I’ve been a bit of a snob about mini-moocs (I’ve called them “Youtube plus a quiz”) but I have to re-think that. For anyone interested in Jewish cultural history, medieval medicine, or manuscript studies, these are tiny little gems. 
survey courses, that I prefer depth to breadth. Still, while there were a few “catalog lectures” early on (this god does that, this demon does the other thing), I found many of the units quite interesting – and last three weeks were great.
adaptations, was particularly rich in this. I was a bit surprised gods, angels, and demons weren’t explicitly connected across cultures (the nature theme, for example), since it seemed to me there were obvious similarities and differences. I probably should have been more active on the forums to discuss these.
the way). I found the lectures on Buddhism to be nearly incomprehensible (I stuck with my interpretation – Buddha was an agnostic who incorporated Hindu gods as a marketing tool – and moved on), but 23 out of 24 is still excellent any way you cut it. 
evolving story of the acheiropoieton, the miraculous portrait of Jesus “not painted by human hands”, to be of great interest. I also loved the last week, a more in-depth case study of another continuing saga of a miracle, this one from Coptic Egypt involving the moving of a mountain. Manuscripts got into the act, and, well, manuscripts, what else can I say. I feel like I finally have some understanding of Copts beyond “Egyptian Christians.” That, to me, is the real value of these types of courses: we feel more connected to places we’ll probably never go, places like the Muqattam area of Cairo, Ise in Japan, Armenia, and Georgia. These days, we need all the connection we can get. 
including archaeology, history in general, the history of ideas, the history of religions, the history of literature, and the branch of philology called textual criticism or (in a larger sense), textual scholarship.” Oooh, now there’s a mooc I want to take! We got a glimpse of this during the last two weeks, in the tracing of the miraculous portrait and the moving of the mountain. I hope to discover more along those lines in future moocs. 
Each of the 13 weekly lessons consisted of two or three academic papers, and about 45 minutes of lecture divided into two videos. The videos were mostly voice-overs covering prepared slides (available as a separate download). You could read the transcripts, download the slides, and read the articles without watching the videos at all. The lectures were well-organized and followed the slides very closely.
Week 1 started with a general look at human rights. Week 2 got into Locke, Hobbes, Marx, and all of the usual suspects (I’ve taken several political philosophy OCWs and the same crew always shows up), negative and positive rights. Mary Wollstonecraft was included, which was nice, since all lectures included the caveat that rights, as declared by the “classic liberals”, were for white property-owning men only (Jeet Heer would approve). In Week 3 the process of drafting and approving the UN Declaration on Human Rights was covered, along with its major provisions.
All of these held interesting material. For example, the indigenous section was taught by Carol Dowling, a professor of aboriginal descent whose twin sister Julie is an artist painting pieces that the experience of the Australian aboriginal peoples and their family specifically. The section on rights for the Disabled included a TED talk by journalist/teacher/comedian Stella Young, who I’ve seen before in several venues; she passed away in 2014. The week on asylum seekers and refugees was heart-wrenching, given the frustration level I and so many Americans feel about our current administration’s refusal to provide more assistance.
I’ve been aware of Kabbalah for decades, both from its mention in popular books and movies to reading a bit more about it in general-readership books on Judaism, like The Jewish Book of Why, but I never knew any of the details, or why some Jews studied it and others didn’t. Then the Beautiful People (aka Madonna) started doing Kabbalah and felt kind of pissed off, that it was being turned into something more like Scientology than something a yeshiva bocher might want to learn when he finished the Talmud. Turns out there are different kinds of Kabbalah, and some have little or nothing to do with Judaism – or religion, or philosophy – at all.
in the late medieval period, the Renaissance, and in the modern period, as well as contemporary approaches to Kabbalah which move away from contemplation of the nature of the divine into more of a focus on self-help.
• Design as a way of reinforcing, or challenging, social norms and expectations. This ranged from toys (which can restrict play to what is expected by the designer, and is reflected in the parent’s choice of the toy, or can allow creativity to use the toy in unexpected ways) to water bottles, which we evaluated on various criteria (turns out, I was on board with masculine and feminine, but I seem to have no idea what erotic, expensive, cheap, or comfortable look like). 
• Design not only communicates from designer to user, but from user to society. Eyeglasses have become fashionable, conveying less of “something’s wrong with his eyes” to “wow, she must be smart” or “those glasses are awesome”; why not other assistive devices? Why can’t walkers and wheelchairs come in colors, to make them look like fun gizmos instead of something old people use? Prosthetic leg coverings are available in superhero styles; eye patches can be decorated. 
• Harvard mathematician George David Birkhoff came up with ways to quantify aesthetics, both visual and linguistic. I have a lot of knee-jerk issues with this, but it’s an intriguing idea. For all our protestations that aesthetics is separate from rationality, it might not be quite so cut-and-dried (no, do NOT tell me about the golden mean and the Parthenon, I’ve been successfully inoculated against that by the best mathematicians around). 
In addition to lecture videos, the course used a variety of participatory materials. Each week, a poll question started things off, a sort of priming mechanism that touched upon some aspect of the concepts to be covered. Short quizzes followed lecture sequences. Activities like the water bottle evaluation, and associated discussion questions, also contributed grades. The final week included a quiz that turned out to be a comprehensive final exam; I was a bit taken by surprise since it was embedded in the week 6 material (it was labeled “Final Exam” so I need to pay better attention). It was somewhat more difficult than the shorter weekly quizzes sometimes requiring making fine distinctions between elements of a theory, but once my pulse rate went down I found it to be an excellent summary of the material. 
For me, the course was a great success. I was worried that, because I’m not in the field of design and am hampered by my art-blindness, I wasn’t “getting it”, but the final video, a casual discussion amongst three of the instructors, reassured me: 
the Pacific Rim, through the Bronze and Iron ages to Classical civilizations, across the innovations of Chinese, Indian, and Middle Eastern peoples reaching the European Gothic and Renaissance periods via trade, to the exploitation of New World peoples by Old World commerce, the history of our brilliance, our goodness, our stupidity and cruelty, our human-ness. It’s really quite amazing, how much is packed into these twelve weeks.
I’ll admit, I was a bit confused at first – I never expected lemurs to lead off an architecture course – and I wondered if it had simply been mistitled, and should be Archeology or Anthropology. But that was ok, too, it was interesting whatever it was, and eventually I caught on to the point: our skyscrapers, our political systems, our religious belief and the way we furnish our houses, all that proceeded from that paleolithic cave. Somewhere in the last four weeks, the quote above about cultural dramas and activating surroundings appeared, and I fully realized the value of this approach. I do think an introductory video would be a big help, however.
I’m beginning to understand that the term “architecture” encompasses more than buildings. The arrangement of places for various activities – sleeping, eating, burials, ceremonies – was prevalent in some of the early discussions of First Societies, the earliest examples of people living in groups, today exemplified by the !Kung (or San: yes, like the guy from The Gods Must Be Crazy). Yet many of their customs are still with us: eating together, forming circles, rituals for coming of age and hunting (or, as we’d put it, going to work). Prof. Jarzombek is a specialist in First Societies, so we spent a fair amount of time with the Gravettians and the Magdalenians, noting the differences between the two. 
architectures? Climate changes and environmental upheaval such as earthquakes changed trade routes, motivated invasions and migrations, and offered or shut down trade. It was all fascinating, one long story of people moving around, adapting to new conditions. Yet some major world history events were ignored: The Crusades, for example, are not mentioned. Sometimes the timeline got a little blurred, since there was necessarily some back-and-forth as the focus switched geographical areas (and I assume there’s a “Part 2” course that picks up where we left off, but that hasn’t made it to moocland yet). I felt like I understood the general flow of human history much better by the end of this course, and once I got used to the presentation style (it took a couple of weeks), I had a great time. 
And then of course there were buildings, plenty of buildings. Stonehenge, pyramids, Angkor Wat, the basilica of St. Peter, the Hagia Sofia and Dome of the Rock were all featured, but there was a great deal besides: the coastal villages of the Haida, the Maasai in Kenya and the Hammer in Ethiopia, Maltese cave temples, the roof-accessible houses of the early city at Çatal Hüyük (now Turkey), the city of Cahokia – the Native American metropolis that was larger than the London of its time, and remained the largest city in what is now the US until Philadelphia of the early 19th century – steppes, caves, shores, mountains, forests… well,I could go on, but you get the idea. From the adjoining square houses of Turkey, accessible only from the roof, to the amazing rock-cut temples in India, the beautiful mosques with fantastic arches and domes to Hindu and Buddhist shrines and Greek temples and Christian basilicas and Gothic cathedrals to Versailles, it was just amazing to see what people come up with no matter what their level of technology. 
originally pagan temples became churches, mosques, synagogues as populations changed. Then we looked at issues of restoration and preservation. Interesting questions about authenticity came up. And then there’s the amazing approach of Jorge Otero-Pailos, who, among other things, removes layers of dirt from buildings using a special rubber compound, then 
I’m pretty sure this was a pre-existing OCW recycled as a mooc. Sometimes this repackaging works, sometimes it doesn’t; here, I think it did, although I have to admit the content had far more to do with my enthusiasm than the presentation. The ‘live” in-class lecture approach is a bit less polished than a multiple-take video, but I still prefer it, as read-to-camera so often comes off as stilted and nervous. The professor’s enthusiasm and off-the-cuff commentary more than made up for image quality and occasionally confusing syntax. 
The lectures were basically slide shows accompanied by narratives about a period, or descriptions of the architecture under consideration.The visuals were sometimes hard to see, but most of them are available online elsewhere, with the exception of maps drawn on Google Earth scenes, which were… pretty messy, to be honest, and not intuitive. But I understand his point about maps showing current nation boundaries being useless in this context; his maps did contain useful information about migration patterns and available resources. They’re worth getting used to. 
Each week includes two lectures, both about 90 minutes. They estimate 8 hours a week is required for the course; that sounds reasonable to me, though it took me longer because of the way I do things (and I’m slow). A free online textbook was provided; it’s huge, and I found it difficult to use, but I’m not that comfy with online books; someone more used to Kindles and such might find it much easier. A print version is available; it’s pricey, but if I were a freshman humanities student, I’d invest in it. For that matter, if I could find a used copy for $15, I’d buy it. 
I found Cerego invaluable here; there was just too much stuff to remember it all without constant reinforcement. While it’s time-consuming to enter important points from each lecture into a quiz set, it serves as studying, and it was very much worth it when the exams rolled around. And it’s still nice to see the early material cropping up, reminding me of the rest of the lecture around key points. Makes me smile. 
dislike overdirected commentary, but it does provide structure, so it’s really a matter of preference.
Blade Runner clips in particular– “Like tears in rain. Time to die” – were discussed in detail), ballet, songs and rituals from a variety of cultures – Maori, Slavic, Korean, Ethiopian – and more contemporary literature, showing how elements of Greek song culture persists today. 
For example, in the early weeks we covered Achilles’ decision-making process on whether to return to Greece or continue fighting. His mother told him if he left, he would live a long, safe, unheralded life, but if he stayed, he would die but would receive glory (kleos) forever – which has special resonance since we’re reading these words written a few thousand years ago, recited hundreds of years before that. Then, in one of the last hours, we see Plato rewrite Achilles so his decision is not based on a desire for fame but on justice. Is this legal? What does it mean, to edit the story this way? 
and hell, even Oprah took it, or at least took parts of it, since she 
Graded material was minimal: a few multiple choice questions and a set of text-interpretation questions at the end of each hour. The questions were surprisingly difficult, with subtle shades of meaning or levels of detail frequently distinguishing one answer from another. Or maybe I’m just stupid; although I “passed”, I did fairly poorly on the graded material, and often felt perplexed as to why. But since my purpose has nothing to do with grades, I did the best I could to understand what was being asked, versus what I thought was required.
to so many systems I’m only going to use once (and makes me a little nervous in this time of electronic insecurity). So I didn’t request a login/password. I came to regret that about halfway through since I found I had questions and observations I would have liked to have shared. Every week a status email would introduce the new material and give a link for obtaining the necessary permissions, so I could have changed my mind at any point, but I didn’t. 
A free textbook is part of the course; this can be downloaded as a PDF or purchased as an e-book, or just read online. It includes significant introductory details on the video material; I found that I had a much better grasp of things when I spent the time to go through the text before the videos, than when I skipped it for lack of time. Many of the quiz questions I found puzzling were, in fact, in this introductory material, though it took an embarrassingly long time to realize that: details of motivations and deeper levels of interpretation. It’s fascinating reading. 
asides. And, it’s apparently a course a lot of people take more than once, just to get more out of it. 
Michael Sandel has been teaching the Justice course at Harvard, the basis for this mooc, for thirty years, and it operates along the same lines as the PBS series. There may well be some organic connection, given the timing and similarity.
I took a different approach to this course: because it was evident it was a back-and-forth discussion live-taped with a (very large) in-person class, I decided to forego my usual saving of video transcripts and readings. I just winged it. I’ve taken just about every philosophy course offered by both Coursera and edX, as well as a couple of Yale OCWs on political philosophy, so the material presented was familiar. A hypothetical case served as a starting point for discovering the limits of utilitarianism, libertarianism, and all the other -isms.
Each of the mooc’s 24 modules began with a Moral Dilemma poll (with a few exceptions), followed by a half-hour live-taped class session with 1000 students in the beautiful Sanders Hall. But don’t let the number put you off: the sessions have a remarkably intimate feel, as individual students answer “What would you do” questions and defend their choices, sometimes using philosophical language, sometimes just speaking off the cuff and allowing Sandel to guide them to a more formal statement of guiding principle. He asks the name of every student, and seems to remember it later on. Differences are viewed less as arguments than as multiple ways of approaching an issue. It’s really quite something to watch.
in itself led to some self-reflection: am I closed to other ideas, or have I simply thought things through carefully?
documents displayed in the windows nearly every day as I walk down Congress Street. The timing of this course coincides with the anniversary, but this was its second run; the first was almost two years ago. 
It was, I will say, an outstandingly produced course. The lecture videos were cinematic, with carefully chosen locations and introductory music that began as a low, ominous hum under the spoken words, then crescendoed at a well-chosen break point to develop into a melancholic theme overlaid by old-style film cuts complete with blotches, pops and crackles. Tremendous work and care must’ve gone into the timing and graphics of these lectures. Some videos were “conversations” with a verité feel, filmed in a coffee shop – again, with a nicely composed introduction of umbrella’d arrival and cappuccino artistry. The production values were extraordinarily high, the material engrossing and moving; I just wish the lectures had been twice as long, at least, with more explicit commentary. 
not lose touch, in this era of drones and air assaults launched from hundreds of miles away from the targets, in a time when most American families do not have anyone in the military, of the real pain that war entails, of the real sight, sound, and feel of death and destruction, so maybe we won’t be so eager to chant war slogans from the safety of our living rooms and offices when our pride is the only thing wounded. 
effect of the current moment, or maybe I was just missing out on some historical subtext. I wish there had been more, but I don’t know exactly what. Still, I’m glad to have some idea of the flow of ideas through the period, and I hope I can expand upon it more in the future.
A Just Recompense 