Philosophy Club
- May 4 · 2:00 PM
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This location is shown only to members
What: Philosophy Discussion Group
When: 1st Saturday of each month, from 2pm – 5pm
(3 hours, including a break)
Where: Justin & Tammy's house in Richardson [*BYOD&S]
How: Readings discussed in-depth amongst the group. No tests, no lecture… we help teach each other in a spirit of learning.
We will usually be reading from a book one will have to purchase, but sometimes there will be articles provided online.
Meeting Topic & Reading List
Can cognitive enhancements make you smarter? How do neural networks work? What is consciousness, anyway? These are some of the questions we will be considering as we go through our next series of discussions on Philosophy of Mind.
Our readings will come from the textbook which can be purchased from the following link:
Readings for May:
Mindware Appendix I, pp 162-170 (available here)
Mindware Introduction and Chapter 1, pp 1-27 (available here)
(Optional) Searle "Minds, Brains and Programs" (available here)
Note: since not everyone has the book yet, we're linking to scanned versions of the readings for this time (click the links above). You'll need the book for later meetings though. To access this readings, you'll need to log in as philclub, and type in as the password the name of the street upon which we'll be meeting (all lower-case, single-word name of a sort of plant). [Since meetup makes that address available to members only, it can be our secret password too...]
Meeting Format
- 10 minute introduction to the material
- Depending on attendence, we may split into smaller groups (4 - 8 people)
- 2 part group discussion of readings with a 10 minute break in between
- Reconvene into large group to share highlights of small group discussions
Expectations
- Readings are not neccessarily required, but we ask that you please stay on topic during the discussion.
- We are teaching each other in a "spirit of learning": we should be humble (we do not know everything), eager to learn, and willing to challenge each other while being kind and considerate.
- There will be people of various backgrounds in philosophy — you do not need to be an expert in philosophy to be in the group (e.g. I'm not; Justin is). If a topic is new to you, here are some good resources, if you are interested:
- Wikipedia
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- The Oxford Companion to Philosophy
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[*BYOD&S] "Bring Your Own Drink & Snack". 
You might get thirsty or hungry — feel free to bring whatever (non-alcoholic) drinks and snacks you'd like (preferably something shareable with the group).
— A note to those with cat-related allergies: Justin and Tammy have cats — one of whom will be rather happy to mingle with all the nice people who came to see him....
>^. . ^<
In a post on Common Sense Atheism, "How to Do Philosophy Better", Luke Muehlhauser summarizes an essay by Paul Graham. In that essay, Graham proposes the following:
Here's an intriguing possibility. Perhaps we should do what Aristotle meant to do, instead of what he did. The goal he announces in the Metaphysics seems one worth pursuing: to discover the most general truths. That sounds good. But instead of trying to discover them because they're useless, let's try to discover them because they're useful.
— Paul Graham, "How to Do Philosophy"
Given a lot of our common values, I think we can study philosophy in a way that helps us, that is useful to us, rather than as something that is considerably esoteric or futile.
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Steve
It was a real pleasure to meet all of you. Thanks much for our hostess/host for sharing their home with us. Great discussion.
May 6
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Sally Ritchie
Welcome, Steve! You're a great addition to the group and I hope you will come back next time!
May 6
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Achal
This new brain mapping is relevant to today's discussions. http://online.wsj.com/article/S...
May 4
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Justin
It's fairly short and fairly readable, so probably yes -- I'd say focus on the appendix and pick up the other stuff only if you have time. And you're welcome to come even if you didn't read it all (though please don't hog conversation with questions that would have been answered by doing the reading).
May 4
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Justin
The Cottonwood Arts Festival is this weekend in nearby Cottonwood Park. The good news is you may enjoy wandering over to check out the festival while you're here. The bad news is this means parking may be a pain. I'd suggest looking for a place south of my house.
May 4
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Justin
I sat down with the book and updated our "assigned readings" to carve out a nice-sized chunk of related material for our discussion. For people whose books haven't come in yet, there are links to a scanned version of this month's readings, but you'll need the book for later months.
April 28
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Gregg
I spoke to Justin last night and have just updated what we will be reading for the first meeting on this new series. As stated above, Justin may be adding some online articles as well; stay tuned….
April 27
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Bob Hagen
What book to read?
Keith mentioned that the Book to read is 'Theory of Mind'. Here, this site has a link to 'Mindware' as the reading material.
Which is the correct book? and there are several Theory of Mind books on Amazon.April 23
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Gregg
Many of you have been asking me about the readings, so I have updated the site as best I could. Unfortunately, I will not be able to attend the meeting, however.
April 19
13 attended
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