March Meetup of the Faux/Philosophers

Hello all,
Once again, our last meetup was an engaging gathering that included a mix of familiar and fresh faces.

Each month I wonder how many of the 12 or 20 who RSVP will appear, especially since hosting such a large group would certainly stretch my facilitation skills. It is therefore a small miracle (at least feels like one) that a comfortable number attend each month.

I thought I would go over how the morning unfolds for those who have in fact RSVP’d but then had to pass for one of many possible reasons. Each session is based on 2 or 3 selections, usually philosophically oriented essays written by well known thinkers of considerable reputation. The essays are relatively short, rarely longer then 20 pages, have few, often no, references, and are moderately challenging without being especially academic or technical. I try to include podcasts or YouTube items for variety. The meetup is informal, and while the readings help kick-off the discussion, the group inevitably explores related ideas, shares experiences, and often finishes with some topics that are otherwise on our minds.

Therefore, in preparation for our meetup, I have chosen 2 items and a YT talk. Daniel Dennett is a notable philosopher with considerable academic reputation, who often ventured into popular culture and well outside of academia, over a long career (sadly he passed away recently). I have selected a ***chapter*** from his 1995 book, ‘Darwin’s Dangerous Idea’. It is available for purchase on-line and at your public library, or can be downloaded at https://www.inf.fu-berlin.de/lehre/pmo/eng/Dennett-Darwin'sDangerousIdea.pdf. I hope you will find ***chapter 3*** interesting, ‘Universal Acid’.

The second selection is, ‘The Conscience of Huckleberry Finn,’ published by Jonathan Bennett in1974. I am not familiar with Bennett, other than to note he was an accomplished and well-known academic. You can download the article at https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/jfb/huckfinn.pdf,

Finally, I will offer a recent YT talk by Timothy Snyder. Snyder, a Yale historian currently at Munk in Toronto, has become very well known over the last 10 years based on his focus on eastern Europe (read Ukraine) and Totalitarianism (read obvious). He is a rather prolific writer and he provides an overview of his recent book 'On Freedom', at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LATN40lw5_s.

We will meet on Sunday, March 2nd at The Common at 10 am.

That’s all for now.