My Philosophy Department was nothing but Derrida, Foucault, Badiou, etc. This video gave me intense flashbacks.

you dont need a commentary to appreciate Ulysses the prose style is so good

Another excellent video, Dr Cooper! I've watched/listened to all the videos in this series from beginning to end, and have found them all really helpful. I focussed on philosophical hermeneutics in my MA in Theology and read works by most of these thinkers, and yet I still learned a lot from what you have produced. Would you be willing to go into such thinkers as Gadamer and Ricoeur in future videos?

Thank you so much, Dr Cooper, a short digest that helps by putting words and roots on the world we face today. It is important to understand the enemy as Christians in the western world and pedestrians like me struggle to go through the minimum study to resist.

You say the reason we call a tree a “tree” is arbor-trary? My world is rocked.

Thank you, Dr. Cooper! Any plans for a video on philosophical Pragmatism?

5:30 Where? Have you recorded but not published it yet? Or is it not part of the MotMW series?

Thank you dr. Cooper!

It might be the case that you overlooked Derrida's later ideas. I believe that his thought has a very strong ethical current, which was mostly expressed in his later works in notions like democracy-to-come, justice-to-come, or Messianicity without Messianism. These are, imo, derived and modified theological structures. His ethics of the wholly Other is also dependent on the thought of Emmanuel Levinas, whose ethical work is almost explicitly theological (i.e depends on the command of God). Levinas was a transcendentalist, and Derrida as well, the wholly Other is as transcendental as one can imagine (i.e always beyond what one can imagine). Derrida's work on hauntology and ghosts can also be understood as a deep concern for heritage and his own avowal of belonging to a tradition (both philosophical and Jewish) (I recently read the text Archive Fever, which, I believe, in part says exactly that). So I don't think that it's just to understand Derrida only by those most famous concepts that were later weaponized by "postmodernists".

One thing I've been surprised by on several of these thinkers is that basic middle school science refutes major pillars of their argument. Ie, "we can only understand 'black' as it relates to 'white'." Well, sure that's one way to understand it. We also know, as a pigment black absorbs light and doesn't reflect it, and is the amalgamation of all the other pigments. In light rays, black is the absence of light or any color in the visible spectrum. White can still be defined primarily as the opposite of this, but black would be black regardless. As an, albeit extreme, member of a spectrum, an opposite will of course exist. But, that existence is only one aspect of the thing's definition, not the entirety of it.

This video and the one on Foucault were great, thank you! Any plan to explore Rene Girard? He's not that influencial but some are trying to offer him as an alternative to all those far left intellectuals. I would love to hear your opinion of his thought.

Instead of saying Derrida is wrong about that he should probably say I disagree with this. It would seem more balanced.

That was a really nice lecture, very well done. I might want to add that karl marx doesn't reject inherent heriarchies in human abilities and capacities. Not everyone can be a physicist or a great athlete or a great poet. Marx rejects hierarchies that come because of virtue of being born in a certain social class but he doesn't reject the inherent hierarchies due to different abilities of people.

40:30 Is the p-word censored by KZfaq?

I think you're being a bit hard on Derrida. Culture isn't largely preserved through texts. Most of our mind is subconscious, and our dispositions come from our immediate experiences of the world unmediated by text or traditional language. You should look into John Vervaeke, he has some interesting things to say about participation and the subconscious.

Did he use logic to prove his point? :) Did he think that what he was saying was true? Is he self refuting?

Maybe it's a misreading, but I get the impression that with many of these 20th c. thinkers sex is always present at least on the background, idk it feels weird

"religious are dependent on religious texts" - that's Derrida's whole point! He's attacking religions, Christianity especially.

I'd never guess just from looking at him that Derrida was a philosopher, same problem with Foucault.😂

Maybe it‘s just me, but I feel that Derrida is rather… shallow? I may not have read him, and I was rather curious to see what Dr. Cooper would make out of him, as he usually seems to make a rather sound representation of the general positions he might be critical of, but even after watching this lecture I find no attraction towards the guy. And I‘m still wondering, whether this is due to Derrida himself, or because of his obvious dismissal by Dr. Cooper. - Is it really the case that the emperor’s clothes are just that? There is just so much that he seems to be missing, and I don‘t think I can make someone’s philosophy the centerpiece of my worldview when I immediately get the impression that his perspective is lacking in so many ways. This is astounding, especially when you think of his influence. - Epistemologically speaking: I don‘t find the shift towards semiotics and language very convincing, and if you don‘t buy that part of the package, the rest of it will not be very convincing, either. So it‘s not really surprising that he ends up with radical conclusions, which some of us might deem as inacceptible when some of his axiomatic assumptions aren‘t acceptable from the beginning already. It reminds me of a quote by John Maynard Keynes, which was originally directed at someone else, but I think it is appropriate and worthwhile to transfer it onto Derrida: „[Derrida], as it stands, seems to me to be one of the most frightful muddles I have ever read, with scarcely a sound proposition in it […] , and yet it remains a [philosophy] of some interest, which is likely to leave its mark on the mind of the reader. It is an extraordinary example of how, starting with a mistake, a remorseless logician can end up in bedlam.“ Edit: In that sense, I am very thankful towards Dr. Cooper. As always. It‘s just puzzling to me that this is „all“ there is.

very interesting talk. I just got into Derrida and it seems to me that dissolving the reliance on The Written Word helps maintain the liberal order and makes room for more voices to partake. After all, if use your prescription and we re-enshrine the opposite: THIS is the word, THIS is the way, etc. We open ourselves up to compromising the integrity of a multi-cultural, multi-religious, multi-ethnic society. And while you as a Christian might be tempted to say "Well, yeah, that's what I want (minus... any racist implication)"; I as a Christian (and fellow protestant) want to remind you that our spiritual values came out of an inconclusive civil conflict in England (the origin of Anglo culture). We maintain our respect for each other by allowing a free flowing interpretation of the Word, and lots of other words. The Word, can include a Lutheran Word, a Quaker Word, a Baptist Word, a Presbyterian Word, and a Catholic Word. Before the modern era it didn't and the result was violent chaos. It also allows for a Hindu Word, a Jewish Word, and a Muslim Word, and even an Atheist's silence. And while it creates discourse that may be uncomfortable, or decisions you disagree with, it doesn't result in Protestants being hacked apart, Catholics being hung, Jews being gassed, or Muslims being bombed (at least not within our borders). True, it creates the opportunity for a Gay marriage that you see as not being transcendent, but you probably cant see see transcendence in a marriage between Muslims, or Hindus, or Catholics either. And while freedom of religion allows that opinion, even if I disagree with it, the one push back you desire is the same argument that an Evengelical government would use to make those marriages illegal as well as Gay ones. You're rejection of Derrida doesn't secure respect for a protestant faith, it endangers it. Unless you think you can win the inevitable conflict of Baptists vs Presbyterians vs Catholics vs Muslims, etc. that would happen (like clockwork) if liberal permissive society didn't exist. You and I have the modern privilege of practicing a style of Christianity without Priests within a permissive society. In a more strict religious society, if we lost the bloody war that founded it, our acts of tradition, marriage and charity would be as vilified as Drag Queen Story Hour. And thus, any society where you'd win would come at the cost of many Christian lives (as well as Muslims, Gays, Hindus, etc etc etc etc...)

is there some reason why people big on Deconstruction never aim it let's say black lives matter, minority rights, lgbt issues, leftism, feminism or socialism?

I would say the West privileges text over speech, not the other way round. Also, why would reading Ulysses lead you to believe that authorial intent doesnt matter? Ulysses is barely a book, its ONLY intent. Its an implication by the author transmitted through book form.

Love the dogmatic insistance on naturalizing human heiarchies. No skeptical inclination at all just a blanket "the way things are is the way they must be." Pitiful capitalist adoration!

Also, no one's "personal" life is separate from their ideas. If you preach an unheard of strict sexual morality but commit adultery, your ideas are clearly wrong and you shouldn't be followed. If your parroting someond else, they might be right, but you clearly aren't, if you invented this, you're a fraud. If someone is a peoedhile, everything they say is illegimate. Sure, immoral people can say moral things that others posit, but if you invent a new idea and you are immoral that idea must also be rejected.

Derrida was an excellent bullshitter