Philosophy Workshop
Member's Home
The workshop is a cooperatively self-taught group who meet weekly on Wednesdays at 2.15. We take it in turns to introduce the agreed topics for discussion. Numbers are very limited to facilitate discussion and because we meet in a member's home (Penn Hill). The group is co-ordinated by Steve Tansey (tel. 709333) and there is more information on his website: www.stansey.com or email Steve via his website.
During the summer holiday 2012, we plan to meet fortnightly to discuss some of the interviews on the Philosophy Bites website. Topics will include morality and psychology, assisted dying, aesthetics, using animals and idealism in eastern & western philosophy.
From September 2012, we shall be discussing Jonathan Wolff's book Ethics and Public Policy: A Philosophical Enquiry (Routledge) which covers topics which include gambling, crime and punishment and disability.
In the second half of the academic year (i.e. in 2013), we plan to go on to discuss Brian Magee's Talking Philosophy: Dialogues with Fifteen Leading Philosophers (Oxford Paperback). This is based on a BBC series which we plan to watch on videos from the U3A Resources Library. The series includes the work of Isiah Berlin, Chomsky, A J Ayer and Iris Murdoch.
Philosophy Reading Group
Member's Home
The Philosophy Reading Group is the new and more accurate name for the previous Beginners' Philosophy Group. We do not have definitive answers to all the questions that have been raised by our reading of philosophical texts over the last year but we have clarified what it is that we are doing! We began pretty much at the beginning by reading Plato’s ‘Republic’, then leapt to the nineteenth century to digest Mill’s ‘On Liberty’, which we followed by my own ‘A Philosophical Analysis of Hope’, bringing us right up to the present day.
In September 2012 we travel back in time again to read Philosophical Writings by Rene Descartes, his famous ‘Discourse on Method’ and ‘Meditations’, (more fun than it might sound but nothing to do with Buddhism/yoga), to be followed by either ‘The Therapy of Desire’ by Martha Nussbaum (not psychotherapy or folk psychology), or ‘The Human Condition’ by Hannah Arendt. Most group members do not have a background in philosophy, they are just ‘philosophy-curious’, they enjoy reading and lively discussion and are happy to share their thoughts with others.
New members are welcome at any time although you may find it best to join in at the start of a new text. You are welcome to drop-in for a taster session to see philosophy–in-action!
For more information contact Jayne Colvin on 469256.
The Philosophy Group at Beachfest July 2010
