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Coming Soon:

The following books by Robert Paul Wolff are available on Amazon.com as e-books: KANT'S THEORY OF MENTAL ACTIVITY, THE AUTONOMY OF REASON, UNDERSTANDING MARX, UNDERSTANDING RAWLS, THE POVERTY OF LIBERALISM, A LIFE IN THE ACADEMY, MONEYBAGS MUST BE SO LUCKY, AN INTRODUCTION TO THE USE OF FORMAL METHODS IN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
Now Available: Volumes I, II, III, and IV of the Collected Published and Unpublished Papers.

NOW AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE: LECTURES ON KANT'S CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON. To view the lectures, go to YouTube and search for "Robert Paul Wolff Kant." There they will be.

NOW AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE: LECTURES ON THE THOUGHT OF KARL MARX. To view the lectures, go to YouTube and search for Robert Paul Wolff Marx."





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Friday, November 27, 2015

ANOTHER POSSIBILITY


In my on-going effort to find some way to present my thoughts on Ideological Critique, it occurred to me that perhaps I could deliver a series of lectures from my study and post them on YouTube.  I would need a good video camera and a lapel mike so that the audio is clear.  Above is a photo of one corner of my study, taken from my desk [which in this tiny study is only seven or eight feet away.]  The "podium" is a music stand, and the ladder to the right is used to access the top shelves, which hold the complete works of Marx and Engels [English edition -- the German is in the Paris apartment] and lots of extra copies of the books I have published.

If I had the energy, perhaps with each posted lecture I could also write and post on my blog a formal version of the lecture [not a transcription] for the folks who would prefer to read rather than listen.

If any of this proves feasible, I hope to launch the lecture series next January.  I will consider the series to have gone viral if half a dozen people watch it.  Hey, I have taught courses with that few students!

9 comments:

Andrej said...

Prof. Wolff, I have only stumbled across your blog in the last few months and have been thoroughly enjoying reading through your older tutorials. I for one am eagerly awaiting your lectures series, whatever form it takes!

Jim said...

Professor Wolff --

This possibility would be a dream come true for me. You once said the following words in an udergraduate "History of Modern Philosophy" course at UMass in the late 1980s: "You can learn something from everything I say to you." I took it to heart then, always have, and still do. Keep teaching us -- there is always something more to learn.

-- Jim

Jerry Fresia said...

This is great news. Great setting too. I only wish there were a live audience.

Robert Paul Wolff said...

sigh. So do I, Jerry.

Anonymous said...

Yes, please go ahead with this, it sounds like a great idea. I am looking forward to it. I am going to try to get the books as well and follow along, although as a number of other people have noted getting the time will be a challenge. Oh to be retired!

Magpie said...

Prof. Wolff,

Unfortunately, I cannot formally commit to your course, but from my own experience with your tutorials, I'm sure it will be terrific.

I also think your choice of setting cannot possibly be improved upon and it's possibly much better than a normal classroom. It's wonderful and charming.

Just one question I had been musing: are you fluent in German?

Robert Paul Wolff said...

Alas, Magpie, I am, one might say, linguistically challenged. I have absolutely perfect command of English, and very little else. There was a time, half a century and more ago, when I actually read entire books of Kant scholarship in German, by Erich Adickes and Hans Vaihinger, among others, but today I would have a hard time with Emil der Detektiv.

Nick said...

This is the shallowest of shallow comments, but looking at your bookshelves is delightful.

ES said...

In whatever shape or form, I really hope you manage to go through with this.
I almost certainly won't have time to follow the course in 2016 but the beauty of youtube is that you can find classic lecture courses by absolute professionals and follow them long after they were given. Rick Roderick, David Harvey and Raymond Geuss will all continue to educate and inspire a long time from now. I hope you will too.