Hubert Dreyfus - Melville's Moby Dick

This is the sixth and final series of lectures in Dreyfus' course called "Man, God, and Society in Western Literature - From Gods to God and Back", which covers philosophical issues as expressed in poetry, drama, and the novel. This course will compare and contrast the Greek, Medieval, and modern worlds, as reflected in their greatest literature, with special emphasis on the role of the community in reconciling conflicts between sub-groups in society and the individual's ability to understand and control his own life.

Lecture 1: 00:00
Lecture 2: 00:48:33
Lecture 3: 02:05:09
Lecture 4: 03:14:12
Lecture 5: 04:27:50
Lecture 6: 04:58:50
Lecture 7: 06:01:11
Lecture 8: 07:16:38

[cdane]

This is the GO TO Discussion on Moby Dick online. This man understands this amazing book. He understands Melville. Fantastic. It makes me wonder if Cormac McCarthy ever got to hear any of this. Moby Dick was Mccarthy’s favorite book in the world. He would have loved this, I think. I sure do. And it’s Cormac, through Blood Meridian, that brought me to Moby Dick.

Moby Dick, for me, was a bit of a struggle to bite into. I imagine it’s like that for many folks, and always has been. Poor readers back in Melville’s day didn’t know what the hell to think.

But man, once the book really gets its teeth in you, it doesn’t let go. It’s a magical book like nothing else. A lifelong companion for the lost, mad, ill adjusted, ill tempered and sincere.

[susiebutz]

I'm reading Moby Dick for the second time and found this lecture the other night. This is the best lecture I've ever listened to online and it's making reading the book such a deeper experience. I love how Dreyfus, as if following Melville's theme, doesn't lecture as if he wholly understands the book but rather revels in the spiritual glimpses, meanings and moods Melville offers throughout the novel. Rarely, if ever, have I come across a lecture of a novel that is as transcendent as the novel.

[marcher.arrant]

I love Dreyfus so much. I listen to this at least two times a year and always learn something new

[DebraBradley]

Best lecture I've ever listened to on Moby Dick. Grateful that YouTube can carry on this wonderful man's work.

[clumsydad]

wonderous, Dreyfus is awakening to the immense depth of the text, I had approached it all wrong so many years ago due to the limited scope I engaged it with. fantastic teacher, humble and insightful

[SurrenderPink]

8 1/2 hours on Moby Dick?! Perhaps the best thing I’ve ever come across on the internet. Saved this to my “Religion” playlist. Wow.

I’m 3:49:00 in and, man, is this fantastic! Many thanks!

[lucasmurphy]

Goddamn. The clarity of the paradox of trying to define the essence of the undefinable is so impressive. And it’s more impressive that he comes close at times. At least that’s my interpretation.

[grippimatt]

31:08 Melville says that in all great bodies of water we see the same fleeting apparition that Narcissus saw in his reflection on the water - "the ungraspable phantom of life" and when Narcissus tried grasping for it he fell into the water and drowned. Moby Dick is the phantom in the water and Ahab is Narcissus vainly grasping for it until he too is drowned.

[warrenzhu]

For anyone who’s interested in Professor Dreyfus, there is an interview on YouTube that he did with B. Magee on Heidegger in the 70s or 80s, and he had this brilliant mustache (and explained Heidegger, as always, eloquently and accessibly).

[ezequielcisneros]

I am on chapter 90 of Moby Dick. I have been reading the book for well over a year. I’m always stopping and googling words from the text that I don’t know the meaning of or googling names or places. It’s been an incredible journey and I’m glad to finally have found this lecture. 🙂

[AgnesRonan]

1:13:00 in my reading the important detail is that this is ishmael's understanding of queequeg's perspective. Queequeg is closed off because he's so used to Christians evangelizing to him, and he thinks ishmael has bought in to evangelism. And the joke of it is they each would call the other a pagan.

[jordanhodder]

5:27:15 my man really starts cooking. Thanks for posting!

[qreste]

Dude I want to compliment you on this excellent channel. This is really a pearl.

[kkrenken]

It IS THE great American novel. To have Dreyfus discussing it is double delight!!

[PerryCuda]

Dreyfus is astoundingly good. He got me interested in deconstructing text with Brothers Karamazov so I checked into this. His work on BK clocks in at 10:20 hrs. and is worth it! It's also on Youtube.

[OIP_]

thanks for the upload, i first listened to these lectures years ago and they are some of the best and most thought provoking experiences i've had. dreyfus was such a gifted man.

[jfamily]

A most brilliant chapter is 40. Written as a play it ends with a race fight. Then a storm hits and they scatter. Layer upon layer of meaning in this gem

[ekteboi]

Just wanted to say that Dreyfus is an absolute delight, and a genius. You can feel the passion in his teaching, all the while being so incredibly humble and open to his students at the same time, even apologising when he feels like he is unclear. Very beautiful.

I have many questions now on indifference, Melville's relation to the heterogeneous and rationality (since these are quintessential topics for Heidegger, and Melville's intensely interesting stance on polytheism that seems to try to avoid (already at that time!) the nostalgia for myth that we postmodernist subjects are so susceptible to in the current time.

[davidgomez-wtpn]

worth more than gold. thanks for the upload.

[FrankieParadisoevah]

"At the time, people didn't know what to make of it" - could that be the reason why Henry James never commented on it (as far as I know)? Great lecture.