This site exists to preserve the teachings of Dr. Rick Roderick. The lectures are transcribed, annotated and accompanied by embedded youtube videos and download links.
Rick Roderick Interviewed by Anne Buttimer (1987)
About Rick Roderick
Rick Roderick was born in Abilene, Texas on June 16, 1949, and received his bachelor’s degree at University of Texas, Austin, Texas. He did post-graduate work at Baylor University, and earned his Ph. D. at University of Texas, Austin, Texas. From 1977 to 1978, he was the editor of the Baylor Philosophy Journal, and from 1977 to 1979 he was a member of the Phi Sigma Tau National Honor Society of Philosophy. He was the recipient of the Oldright Fellowship at the University of Texas and served as associate editor to The Pawn Review, and Current Perspectives in Social Theory. He was the undergraduate director of the Duke Marxism and Society Program. He is the author of the book Habermas and the Foundation of Critical Theory (1986), as well as numerous articles in professional journals. He has presented over 24 papers, and published 13 reviews and literary criticisms. From 1977 to 1993, he taught Philosophy, first at Baylor, then University of Texas and then at Duke University.
His areas of specialization were Marx and Marxism, Social and Political philosophy, Critical Theory (Habermas and the Frankfurt School), 19th Century Philosophy, and Contemporary Continental Philosophy. He also taught Ethics, Logic, History of Modern Philosophy, Aesthetics and Existentialism.
He was a four-time nominee for the Alumni Undergraduate Distinguished Professor Teaching Award and has been recognized by the Smithsonian Institute as the best teacher in his field. His “The Philosophy of Human Values” lecture series has been the best selling videotape in the history of academia. He has been published in five countries. His “Habermas and the Foundations of Critical Theory” is an internationally recognized standard in the field. His work has been studied and reviewed worldwide–India, China, Denmark, Germany, etc.
Rick was controversially denied tenure at Duke University in 1993. Very little is known about the circumstances or what happened next. He died on January 18, 2002 of congestive heart failure.
I hope you enjoy these lectures as much as I do… I have listened to them countless times. As the years go by they only become more poignant and eerily prophetic. Bear in mind that the internet and smart phones did not exist when these lectures were recorded.
Guidebook: Philosophy and Human Values (1990)
Lecture One: Socrates and the Life of Inquiry
Lecture Two: Epicureans, Stoics, Skeptics
Lecture Three: Kant and the Path to Enlightenment
Lecture Four: Mill on Liberty
Lecture Five: Hegel and Modern Life
Lecture Six: Nietzsche: Knowledge and Belief
Lecture Seven: Kierkegaard and the Contemporary Spirit
Lecture Eight: Philosophy and Postmodern Culture
Guidebook: Nietzsche and the Postmodern Condition (1991)
Lecture One: Nietzsche as Myth and Mythmaker
Lecture Two: Nietzsche on Truth and Lie
Lecture Three: Nietzsche as Master of Suspicion and Immoralist
Lecture Four: The Death of God
Lecture Five: The Eternal Recurrence
Lecture Six: The Will to Power
Lecture Seven: Nietzsche as Artist
Lecture Eight: Nietzsche’s Progeny
Guidebook: The Self Under Siege – Philosophy in the 20th Century (1993)
Lecture One: The Masters of Suspicion
Lecture Two: Heidegger and the Rejection of Humanism
Lecture Three: Sartre and the Roads to Freedom
Lecture Four: Marcuse and One-Dimensional Man
Lecture Five: Habermas and the Fragile Dignity of Humanity
Lecture Six: Foucault and the Disappearance of the Human
Lecture Seven: Derrida and the Ends of Man
Lecture Eight: Fatal Strategies
my contribution!
http://popdepression.bandcamp.com/track/ilija-ludvig-another-day-full-of-dread
thanx
il
nice, i like it… there’s a few other rick roderick music projects around the place. check out “dub roderick” on youtube, thats pretty good too http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFeNkM5i20A
well, could use some editing, not just to put two tracks…
Hopefully one day melodysheep will get his hands on rick!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgiXGELjbc
anyway
thanks
and
adios
il
Mr. Roderick,
My son studies Sociology at Occidental College in Los Angeles, CA. When he takes time off he comes back to us, his parents, in San Diego, CA. We spend time watching your lectures in You Tube. Do you give lectures in Southern California? We would love to attend if you do so.
Congratulations.
The Alba family
To the writer; you do realize Mr Roderick died in 2002?
He was an interesting and complex fellow!
I was just mesmerized by these lectures. I just stumbled into them on you tube. I was born in 1949. His death was a real loss. Thank God he recorded his lectures for future generations. Wonder how he died?
He died of congestive heart failure.
Hello, I was wondering if anyone could direct me towads Roderick’s PhD dissertation. Where can we read this==??
Rick’s interpretation of Nietzsche’s Eternal Recurrence is sublime. Many thanks. J
Enter your comments here…hello to the Roderick clan i found this web page by default
I am on a spirtual path and feel there is a reason why I come here
I will look at ricks work and see what it’s all about and why I stumbled across it
God bless all of you
One of Rodericks quotes I love the most,
“The death of God is about a drying up of a horizon of meaning…”
It´s up to us to create what gives meaning to life.
Rest in peace brother. You are greatly missed 🙁 🙁
Wow… talk about immortality. I just discovered a great man today and I wanted to tell him, one Texan to another, that his lectures are amazing, his humor sublime. Alas, I am 12 years too late… but, it is almost fitting, after his last remarks on Heidegger (lecture 2 in Self Under Siege) he says, “…but for now that’s all except be sure and fear death. I mean, that’s important to being human. Fear death and realise that even if you don’t smoke, and even if you jog, you are still going to die, and that should come as a great relief to all of you.”
About Dr. Roderick: From following his lectures the following: I like his style. I like the fact that he puts humor into what he says and I like the fact that he says what he wants to say without ambiguity.
I really wish I could have met him and studied him a bit more (through latter works, had he lived longer)It is a pity that he died at such a young age, but alas, I agree with Frank, no one knows the time or date, but that death comes for us all is sure. And here I also admire his honesty, few philosophers acknowledge the terrible specter of death.
Omar Fourie
Rick Roderick needs a twitter page with quotes from his lectures. It’s a way to keep his memory and words alive every single day.
sounds good can you do it
@thenonperson on twitter posts Roderick quotes and related material.
The YouTube videos of Rick’s lectures are fantastic, and sadly I’m just discovering them. I’m going to a country that blocks youtube.com, however, and thus I’m going to lose access to Rick’s wonderful video lecture series, as it is blocked in that country). I wonder if anyone knows of a hidden place where I can find the videos (other than youtube)? I couldn’t even find a dvd for sale on amazon (audio casettes only, and who has an audio player these days?).
Thanks,
Hi Mark,
There are download links for the videos at the top of each page. They are preceded by the word “Download:”, so just search for that on any of the lecture pages if you can’t see it.
Chris
I found photos of Rick in the 1989 and 1993 Duke University yearbooks. If you want to post them here please give me an email address and I will send them to you.
I am late to this party but very enthused!
Sounds great Patrick – send them through to ctrlshift at gmail dot com
I have only ever seen the same two photos floating around, might be good to mix it up.
I might be starting a B.A. Honours degree in Philosophy in 2015. I’ll take a look through the website also, but are there any possible subjects with Dr. Roderick in mind that I can explore for a mini-dissertation? Perhaps something biographical (about his life), or thematic (some of the subject matter he intended to be expounded on). Thanks! Omar Fourie.
Hi Omar,
His favourite topic was Habermas, I think some fun could be had analysing how close social media (especially twitter) gets us to “undistorted communication”. I wonder occasionally what Rick would have thought about it.
Chris
It would be even further interesting to see what he would have to say about the distortion of communication we’ve possibly witnessed by bots, foreign agents, and private influence firms like C.A. on the internet as of late. I would have agreed that the modern internet–through events like the early Arab Spring (but now I have my doubts)–seemed to display clear communication, but now I might argue that it has perhaps shown most clearly just how difficult undistorted communication can be to achieve.
I haven’t read Habermas’ theories in detail as to how a society could reach undistorted communication/clear communicative action; I’m more learned in some of his critics, like Lyotard, who see rational, clear communication as impossible, although that doesn’t mean I completely agree with them. However, I have a suspicion that Rick would be a bit wary about the internet, or any “damned machine”, being the path to human clear communicative action.
I do wish Rick was around. I’m looking for the right graduate program, and although I had great teachers, I never had anyone put “what matters” and theory together like Rick did in just three lecture series. I ache for that mix of social/political philosophy, Marxism, Adorno/Marcuse, and Nietzsche. My professors and books always gave me a piece of the puzzle, but no one ever made it all come together the way these lectures did for me.
A brilliant series of lectures. I loved the detailed presentation of the works of Nietzsche. Hardly anyone appreciates his works with a positive, non-nihilistic approach that also offers in a way, a critique of postmodernism. i’m so glad that such lecture series are put up online.
As a conservtive Catholic I love to hear and intellient articulate compelling challenge to my belief system. Guys like Rick stop us from becoming smug and lazy.
Great series of lectures!!
Lecture One: The Masters of Suspicion directs me back here.
I was introduced to Dr. Rocderick in a Contemporary Sociological Theory Course. This guy is fantastic! I wish I had known him, studied under him. Thanks to whomever has put this sight together and keep his lecutures available. I was searching for more helpful lectures on Mill and Utilitarianism. I am glad to find Dr. R again. I will be back.
Thank you,
Student at present at Columbia College of Missouri.
one more comment, having read Dr. R’s academic background, he may have been at UT while I was a meandering philosophy major at Texas A&M. Or he may have already graduated……..the point is , he was in Texas when I was, and somehow that connects me more to his spirit. Sappy? No, I am just very sentimental about where I have been and where I am now. Because of being exposed to his works and to another’s, and my current professors, I chose to take my major studies in sociology (theory and practical application) and history.
Some more info on Rick can be found at tinyurl.com/jzcv562.
I have only 4 more of the lectures to view (for the first, but not last, time). What a gift! Thank you, Rick, and, ctrlshift.
Hi, I am trying to contact Rick’s son Marshall. I just finished a massive poster project in philosophy and probably could not have pulled it off without Rick. He was truly a modern Socratic figure committed to truth and humility. My question is simple and straightforward. As someone who knew him intimately; how do I deal with a world like this? Can you offer any advice? On a regular basis now I wake in the morning convinced I am Alice with big black hair and a big red dress; I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole; and it’s the mad hatter over there and the smiling cat over there and talking furniture over there …. you get the point. All our political candidates are characters out of a South Park cartoon. How does one find some kind of engagement yet also some kind of detached concern? I am experimenting with imagery work and mythologies just to sort of get through the day … but it occurred to me to ask you. He really was extraordinary.
Mark, anyone out there. We are witnessing the apotheosis of the postmodern man that Roderick forewarned. We are at a profoundly dangerous time in human history. What would he say to explain this? What are to prospects for the self? Has the siege ended? These lectures are an immense resource. If there is a community or group promoting or interested in promoting Roderick’s message please let me know.
If you have found such a community in the time it took me to find this message, would you let me know?
I owe so many hours of deep delight and existential concern to Rick Roderick, I keep coming back to his lectures like a good piece of music, he introduced me to philosophy much in the same manner of Robert C Solomon by clear speaking and plain understanding, yet his lectures are still filled with a sophisticated delivery, thank you so much Rick, you are a true philosopher.
Enter your comments here…Moving through life there are stepping stones that we can rely on to avoid sinking into the swamp – he is one of mine.
What a gift. thank you for making this available I have learnt more from this lectures than I did my entire school days. It’s saddening the naivete with which the American culture has been received especially in Africa (where I’m from) I always believed that American people are “free” but they are only free within limits of a transparent chain that is virtually impossible for people to even acknowledge. And then I saw the Virtual reality porn being made by Naughty America it’s almost prophetic! https://goo.gl/PHAvLL R.I.P Rick in his words I too hope there will be resistance.
This was was amazing!
Thanks for sharing his legacy!!
for the past two years I have enjoyed Roderick’s style of teaching and his amazing talent for analyzing complex concepts. I wonder about his personal life, was he married ? Did he have children ? If so, maybe they have more info as to why he was fired from Duke?
Rick Roderick was a very intelligent and complex man who was a creature of his own appetites which, ultimately, shortened his life, and sometimes, his tenure.
what do you mean Amy Rohrer, please elaborate??
Just guessing here, but I think she means he drank too much and too little exercise… no one is perfect. I sometimes enjoy listening to these lectures at the gym.
Rick had lots of bad habits from 3 packs of cigarettes a day to a horrible diet and reliance on a complex pharmacy of pills. He also had some trouble controlling his appetite with students (He told me this himself in a variety of ways and it was confirmed by a woman I talked to at Duke when I was first trying to track him down) which most certainly would have given them an excuse to oust him especially if his views were challenging to their status quo but he largely brought his troubles upon himself including his early death. I believe this was because he was a creature of extreme existential angst which my research says may be related to an accidental death that he was some how responsible for in his late teen years.
Amy Rohrer, I’d love to read more of your research. Are you thinking of making it available anywhere?
Dave,
This is not research in that sense. I knew Rick for a brief period of time in 1998 and met with him down at UT where he was an adjunct professor after his time at Duke and then in Los Angeles. It was eye-opening to say the least.
Rick was my advisor as an undergrad at Duke, and I knew him (and his family, at the time) pretty well. I took five courses with him, and we were friends, although I lost touch with him after he was denied tenure and moved to Los Angeles, while I was in grad school in Pittsburgh. (I dedicated my book on Fredric Jameson to him, partly in honor of his influence on my thought.) Rick’s occasional abrasiveness and eccentricity undoubtedly played their parts, but I can confirm that he was denied tenure for one reason mainly: lack of publications. It’s true, he had published a book (Habermas and the Foundations of Critical Theory), but that was basically his dissertation, so they felt it did not count. Rick was supposed to be working on a book on Hegel, but I never saw any chapter-drafts. He had only a couple of other articles published while at Duke, and that school really expected a lot more in terms of “scholarly output.” “Publish or perish,” as the saying goes, and that’s the fundamental reason that Rick was denied tenure.
What an absolute shame that someone with such obvious teaching abilities, would be denied for lack of publishing. For those of us that went to poor or mediocre schools, I’ve never seen anyone who is so good at presenting this kind of complicated material
One of the most profound pieces of advice Rick said in a lecture and I remind myself daily is the necessity to ” fight to feel”.
Just watched a lecture by Rick on Hegel on YouTube. I found it via random search on Hegel. What a gem of a thinker. I was looking forward to seeing recent work but sadly this mind is no longer with us. Just wanted to take a moment to say thanks for preserving his work.
Professor, I miss you!
Fortunately, I have all your Teaching Company courses and your book. The first time I heard you was an epiphany–I realized that I had found the perfect teacher and your courage, wisdom, and compassion will be with me until my end. And I fear death less because it comes as a great relief to me that I will then join you in the place beyond this. RIP!
Enter your comments here…
Dear Site Manager
I am mortified as I am a great Fan of Dr Roderick and return each year to listen again to his lectures – it seems none of the videos of his lectures play-only the transcripts are up.
This is frightening considering the state America is in and I hope it is not malicious action against a truly great American philosopher.
Please tell me this is temporary.
Sorry to hear you have trouble viewing the videos. They work for me. Can you elaborate on which page you were accessing and how you were accessing it? The embedded videos are all working as far as I know.
Enter your comments here…What if any text or video material do you have or can you direct me to re Rick’s comments/take on Hobbs?
Thank you for this page. Rick Roderick is truly edifying, and if it is true a person can live on through their works, no doubt he will be the testament to this maxim.
Also, I can’t help but notice this page doesn’t seem to have a link or button for donations.
Computer science isn’t my strongest suit, but I do know sites cost money to maintain. I’ll admit, I’m not the most charitable in this world, but for this is would seem fitting to part with a few bucks if it means the continued existence of this incredible resource.
Feel free to send me an email.
Thanks
Has anyone heard of Rob Hopkins?
I was a student at Duke University and got to have Rick as my teacher in an Intro to Logic course taught during the summer term, not even a year before he was shunned by Duke and moved to UT Austin.
During that summer term, he wore the same black t-shirt of the rap group Public Enemy’s biggest album, “Fear of a Black Planet” every day, and I do remember him wearing a blazer over it, just to give him more maturity and make him look more professorial. He was sooo much bigger than life, forever smoking out the open window and venting to us about how the crypto-Klansmen of the Duke faculty had denied him tenure because he didn’t fit their Harvard Yahd-wanna-be image to any degree, despite his enormous magnetism and genuinely singular knowledge of the subject matter.
At the beginning of the logic course he made a point of telling us that, while logic was somewhat interesting and useful for computer programming and probably artificial intelligence, it played virtually no role in human affairs because the overwhelming majority of people were “pre-biased Nazis” who merely back-rationalized all their various proclivities and petty xenophobias. On more than one occasion he would stick his head out the window and yell “FUCK YOU, TOO” at the top of his lungs out to the quad, at the rest of the campus and, most importantly, the pretentious, overconceited faculty who had rejected him because they placed bland superficial diversity over real and radical diversity of opinion and perspective.
And, of course, Rick wouldn’t be the first real person of superior substance that Duke would reject — they rejected everyone who didn’t fit their crypto-conservative, strictly-Northern-Europeanist, fetish. In time they would also reject people like Henry “Skip” Gates and David Castriota, both of whom were just powerhouse professors who absolutely taught their classes with an absolute “redpill” tendency.
Maybe someone should make a movie about Rick Roderick, and call it “It Came From West Texas”. Or something like that.
Amazing! Thanks for sharing your Duke history with us!
Not sure who the currator is here, but I’ve poached a bit of this site to make Facebook page of the same intention. Hopefully that’s ok. Rick Roderick was, and is, such a boss.
What an American treasure! absolutely dumbfounded he is not famous. I am sharing this site with anyone who likes rediscover themselves. His lectures should be shared and reposted everywhere
I admire Rick Roderick as one of the most brilliant minds of our time or any time in human history. To think he was to be found in West Texas just shows that gemstones are formed in unlikely and barren looking places. I only wish I had known him personally as a student or as a friend. I don’t think I’ve ever come across a wiser or more compassionate intellect in my 65 years on this strange planet. This world is so much poorer for his passing. RIP Rick.
Hey I just discovered I’d already left a comment some time ago. Well I guess he is easily worth admiring twice.
Hello, Fellow Fans of Rick,
After searching and not succeeding in finding *’modern’ quality audio versions of these lectures, I took it upon myself to try and ‘remaster’ using the videos as the source. The results have been quite nice and I think worth sharing for those like who listening to the great courses while on the go. I’ve managed to *nearly eliminate the tape hiss sound without distortion of Rick’s voice and compressed the audio in AAC-LC for small size high quality. I hope you guys will enjoy it. Cheers.
Google-Drive Link: https://goo.gl/wDEQot
Cmd-Option
This is a great resource! Thanks for doing this.
Brilliant! Thanks so much for sharing this!
Yes, what can one say about this man who changes Philosophy from dull monochrome to sparkling colour. In his projected mind… Philosophy for me, became an applicable entity, rather than a turgid mess of language tying itself up in lucrative knots.
Thanks to all who have contributed to my joy…including the hiss free audio.
I am doing an annotated set of ALL his works including the Lectures, writings and the interview above, primarily for myself. But online when I get time.
His work is truly fractal and branches off into so many areas as to make me realise it will be impossible for me to complete this project in my remaining Life Span.
I find his works absolutely crucial to what I call “Philosophical Medicine” i.e. Pragmatic or as I prefer “Crisis” Philosophy, ideas of use, in any crisis such as my very own….
Mine was the simple one of being given 3 months to live with Leukaemia 2 yrs ago!!!!
I very much hope to live long enough to complete my exploration into all the
avenues his work opened up for me.
There is one other Philosopher still living who also helped me considerably in terms of Philosophical Medicine, but Rick seems to have seriously considered his actual dying in some of these talks, and offers useful measures for coping with it. He died very young and I hope he died as he would have wished.
Hats off to the lot of you and thanks
Chris Laurence you deserve a Nobel Prize for services to Humanity and that remark has quite an edge of Truth about it, many a Life is far richer, mine included, for what you did in preserving and presenting these Philosophical gems…
Thank you so much. Could be the salvation of thinking mankind.
Recently discovered Rick’s lectures on YouTube; quite simply an oasis discovered in an endless American desert. Thank you for sourcing this treasure.
I noted several of the links (“Links” page) are non-functional; need help moderating? My hand is up….
Thanks for the heads up. Links have been updated or deleted as appropriate.
Hi there,
The linked connected to “denied tenure” seems to be offline. Thank you for this website!
Thanks, I have now changed it to link to an archive copy. The “what happened to rick roderick?” page was the main Rick Roderick site for a long time until they needed to disable the comments due to robot spam. It seems to be permanently offline.
Some folks really are born posthumously…
In the minds of those they touch.
I feel fortunate to have been “touched” in this way.
I was wondering about the original VHS tapes. Does anyone know if there was ever a release with the Question and Answers? He keeps alluding to question and answer period and I am pretty intrigued. Also, the last video of one of his talks seems a lot shorter at like 33 minutes and cuts out fairly abruptly. Is that intended? I have only found the videos on youtube. Just wondering as I’ve watched each series at least 3 times completely, if not more and I want to squeeze every bit I can. What a lucid orator, truly appreciate the “for the non-footnoting public” style of talk and the folk-ism style he employs.
Why is it Marxist and Critical Theory professors have this simplistic rigid interpretation of hierarchical power structures? Sex, race, ethnicity and religion aren’t exclusive criteria of hierarchical systems. Social status or class. “You may meet all the above criteria but without an Ivy League degree you’ll never get a job in ‘The State Department’. Makaveli put it best
there are two groups of people the “great” and the “people”. The “great” wish to oppress and rule the “people”, while the “people” wish not to be ruled or oppressed.
To think a peasants or surfs benefited fmore than slaves is foolish. Whether be feudal, communism or facsism are collective ideologies that in practicality end just the same, authoritarian rule of a select few at the expense of the masses and benefits those on top of the hierarchy.
The collectivization of private property and mean of production (whatever that means) is to deny the proletariat the fruits of their labor. Capitalism (voluntary exchange) is by no means a perfect solution the collective I Central planning has always had horrible results. If individuals working on their personal interest can’t be trusted then how could a person be trusted with sole authority? Marxism, socialism monopolizes what it seeks to aviod. It’s an idealistic ideology suffering from a severe
case of psychological projection.
Your ignorant comment barely deserves a response. The truth is that critical theorists and the post-structuralists are the only groups to have developed sophisticated theories of power. The rest is just utterly incoherent.
is it possible to have a list of reccomended books by Roderick? or even all his books he read 😀
Glad this work was preserved. Hearing this for the first time in January 2020.
I listened to “Self Under Siege” and it meant something. I googled the lecturer hoping to find more by the man. I look forward to hearing the remaining two lectures. I am saddened to know that’s all there will ever be.
This is really a cool site!
Thank you 🙂
I am looking forward to seeing all these lectures.
Does anyone know where Rick is buried, if I wanted to visit and pay my respects?
Thank you for preserving Rick’s work. I study hard all day and these lectures are what I watch to every evening. I started college @30 years old after fishing on the Bering Sea and living out of my backpack for 12 years…. I’m studying business at Cornell and not surprisingly I don’t really fit the IVY mold…, I’m here precisely because I despise business, and the IVYs….
It’s reassuring to hear philosopher-renegade challenge conventional wisdom so eloquently.
I’m really sad he’s passed away.
What did mr.roderrick say or think about when it came to the subject of Karl Marx and Marxism?