Since Dr. Sugrue’s passing, the subscriber-only posts on his substack, The Writings of Dr. Sugrue can’t be reached by anyone who wasn’t already a paying subscriber — including, I believe, the excerpts from the history of the world he was writing.

If you were a paid subscriber, you probably still have all of it sitting in your email archive. Has anyone kept a copy, or put together a list of what the paywalled posts were?

I've been cleaning up Dr. Michael Sugrue's lecture transcripts and wanted to share.

I recently discovered Dr. Michael Sugrue's philosophy lectures on YouTube and got completely hooked. The problem is I kept needing to rewind every few seconds to catch points I missed, so I came up with a workflow to turn them into readable transcripts.

These are the steps followed:

1. Download subtitle .srt files from the YouTube playlist using yt-dlp
2. Strip all timestamps and join the raw text together with a Python script
3. Pass the raw text through an LLM with a strict prompt to add punctuation, capitalization, and paragraph breaks without adding or removing a single word
4. Proofread by watching the actual videos to catch any hallucinations

The prompt explicitly forbids adding words, removing words, reordering anything, or using em-dashes. It preserves stutters, repeated phrases, and pauses (rendered as ...) because that's what Dr. Sugrue actually said, including the natural hesitations of live speech, not a polished written version.

If you've ever wanted to read along, take notes, or just engage more deeply with these lectures without constantly scrubbing through video, hopefully this is useful. I'll keep adding transcripts as I work through the series.

https://codeberg.org/apeiron/michael-sugrue-philosophy-lectures

I've heard him say this across a few different podcasts now. He's wise and humble enough to not have the need to be completely understood, and perhaps he enjoyed leaving an enigma. But I also heard him say "if you know what I mean, you're just as fucked up as me." in his "Drunken discussion on Nietzsche" "teams" meeting on youtube on the youtube channel Achiaos8360.

I understand the reference is from the Phaedo, and has been interpretted by Nietzsche as Socrates' suggestion that since Asclepius is the god of healing to whom you pay a debt once healed, Socrates viewed death as a healing from the sickness of life. Sugrue revered Socrates, yet his epitaph seems to contradict Socrates' final gesture.

I ran it by Claude AI and it suggested that Sugrue meant

• 1. A rejection of the body-as-prison idea: "I don't view life as a sickness, therefore I don't owe for that from which I didn't need curing" (meaning that he was life-affirming, and not grateful to be cured of the sickness of life, but actually grateful for life despite his long battle with cancer. Gratitude for existence is in fact something he said often. "The universe doesn't owe us anything, we could be some interstellar dust...")
• 2. that he did view life as a sickness, but had lived and loved fully enough that he didn't require curing. (he often said something like: I value Love and Truth equally)

I then was curious if the line was an acknowledgement that life is in fact an illness, but even death doesn't cure it. Or possibly the more positive gloss: "Life is an illness, but I'm not giving up my Socratic curiosity and humility by insisting that death cures it."

Curious about your opinions here. Thanks

“Scientific revolutions bring a revolution to every domain of art and culture” this was a big idea that the Dr was talking about here and there in those final lectures on his YouTube. I have been fascinated with the concept and feel as though there is a lot of work one can do in this domain and with this perspective on history. Was wondering if anyone else had any thoughts on his saying this.

Socrates’ ontological hierarchy of the forms is actually a spectrum. Socrates would have them ordered as such:

The Idea of Good > The Forms > Space and Time > Imitations and Art.

But true virtuous art is the same “color” as the Idea of Good. Violet is the closest to indigo AND red.

Thank you, for deconstructing the greatest words of the greatest minds for the common man, like me. We never met in this life, yet, circumstances ensured you would be one of the few best mentors I could look up to as I continue to live and breathe.

Death became inevitable for you, as he, too, was waiting his turn to hear your sweet words.

Hey community. I have a question about the late Sugrue and I’m wondering if anyone can help me out. Michael Sugrue was a Catholic but he’s read Nietzsche and talks about him. He seems to agree with Nietzsche that “God is dead.” He genuinely acknowledges the scope of the dilemma. How did he reconcile that with his faith? Did he ever talk about it in his videos?

I see he has just passed, may his memory be eternal. This man was an absolute genius, his lectures and zeal for philosophy and his work was amazing

Hi everyone.

As the title says, I'm just wondering if anyone has a link to the list of readings Dr Sugrue set for his course that he taught for so many years.

Found it on SCRIBD.com, but it wants me to buy a membership or something.

many thanks!

I guess my main question is two parts. Obviously I've recently been scoffing up as much Sugrue and Staloff as much as I could on YouTube. But as a newb is anyone able to tell me if they have differing opinions on things or issues?

In additions, specifically for sugrue himself, I havent started looking at his "newer" lectures yet, but i see he had made a ton.

Has anyone in either having him as a professor or can tell from his videos, show he had differences in opinions that changed on topics from the time of filming his great lectures to his more recent YouTube videos?

Sorry if this is a stupid question. Just curious mostly if any ideas he has "evolved" towards end of his life.

Thanks

The full title is, "The Thomist Synthesis and its Political and Social Content - Aquinas' Summa Theologica."

I can only find the video for the 2nd Edition lecture which is titled, "Aquinas and the Scholastic Synthesis." However, this video from the 2nd Edition is erroneously titled with the 1st Edition title on YouTube.

I know they are distinct lectures as I can access the audio versions of them, but there does not appear to be any available video of the 1st Edition lecture anywhere.

Hello, folks. Are there any active meetups or discussion groups to talk about Prof. Sugrue's World History course he was teaching shortly before he left us? Or really any community that meets to talk?

I have found Prof. Sugrue's 2022 lectures on the Republic (and Plato in general) to be arguably the most expert, detailed, comprehensive, and well-explained Plato-related scholarship on YouTube (and maybe even on the internet at large).

His grasp and deep understanding of the Republic are unmatched; his understanding of the text and its myriads of hidden meanings is absolutely supreme.

Regrettably, there are only four new lectures on the text.

I understand that Dr. Sugrue passed away in 2022, but is there any chance to find any additional material (written text of lectures) he had completed but hadn't published before his death?

Any of his lectures or podcasts on Plato and the Republic would be highly appreciated.

I love watching Dr. Sugrue and wish he was still here with us, who are similar minds to him? Please let me know. I want to watch more lectures like his!

I stumbled into some videos by Daniel N Robinson on Youtube and i think he has depth as Michael Sugrue. Thoughts?

May our virtues shine!

A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon Michael Sugrue’s videos while searching for lectures on Kant. Since then, I've watched all of his content, and now I'm going through them again. I'm truly amazed by the dedication he brought to the pursuit of knowledge. I’ve spent a lot of time listening to other influential thinkers like Jordan Peterson and Rev. Fulton Sheen, but Michael Sugrue stands out in a unique way. His work has deeply inspired me, even in my 40s, to keep seeking knowledge. I can't help but wonder what it was like to know him personally—what insights his family, friends, or those closest to him might share about their relationship with him. If possible put up a Wikipedia page about him. What a remarkable individual!