The San Diego Philosophers' Roundtable

(* Robin Smith, author of SEP's 2022 entry "Aristotle's Logic," argues that Rhetoric should be part of the Organon.)

Whenever we do any human thing, we can either do it well or do it poorly. With instruments, we can do things either better, faster, and more; or worse, slower, and less. That is, with instruments they either augment or diminish our doings.

Do thinking and speaking (and writing and listening) require instruments? Yes. We do need physical instruments like microphones, megaphones, pens, papers, computers. But we also need mental instruments: grammar, vocabulary words, evidence-gathering techniques, big-picture integration methods, persuasion strategies. Thinking while sitting meditatively all day in a lotus position doesn't require much instrumentation of any kind, but thinking and speaking well in the sense of project planning, problem-solving, negotiating, arguing, deliberating--that is, the active doings in the world (whether romantic, social, commercial, or political)--do require well-honed mental instruments. That's the Organon in a nutshell.

Are you an up-and-coming human being, a doer, go-getter, achiever, or at least you're choosing to become one? You need to wield the Organon.

Join us.

Garrett is a programmer turned award-winning software inventor turned entrepreneur (http://platerate.com/) is his company. His hobby is writing and discussing practical philosophy, and he does life coaching on request to help people live happy, moral lives. He is also the executive director of The Free Thinker Institute (http://freethinkerinstitute.org/), which aims to create a community that helps members increase happiness and decrease harm for themselves and those they can influence.

Format:
Lecture and discussion

Note:
social time for our community 15 minutes before the presentation.

To get familiar with our past events, feel free to check out our YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmixGB9GdrptyEWovEj80zg

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March 1 - We will read chapter 10. Previous chapters were about (1) common beliefs about friendship, (2) the object of love and friendship, (3) three corresponding kinds of friendship, (4) distinguishing the best from the inferior kinds, (5) the state of friendship vs. its activity, (6) comparing the many variations, (7) friendships between unequals, (8) loving versus being loved, and (9) friendships within social groups. This next will be about forms of government resembling family relationships.
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Our main translation from here on will be by Adam Beresford (Penguin Classics, 2020), but we will occasionally dip into other older English translations to get more insights and commentaries.
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We are live-reading and discussing Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, book VIII–IX, which is about friendship, social relations, and love.
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The prerequisite to this book is our answering for ourselves these questions from the prior books, to which we will briefly review:
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1. What is a virtue of character {ēthikē aretē}?
2. How does one come to acquire any of it? (E.g. pride, ambition, bravery, gentlemanliness, generosity, candor, fairness, …)
3. From a first-person perspective in being virtuous, how does one feel and what does one see (differently, discursively) in a given situation of everyday living?
4. How does one formulate right desires?
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The project's cloud drive is here, at which you'll find the reading texts, notes, and slideshows.

(* Robin Smith, author of SEP's 2022 entry "Aristotle's Logic," argues that Rhetoric should be part of the Organon.)

Whenever we do any human thing, we can either do it well or do it poorly. With instruments, we can do things either better, faster, and more; or worse, slower, and less. That is, with instruments they either augment or diminish our doings.

Do thinking and speaking (and writing and listening) require instruments? Yes. We do need physical instruments like microphones, megaphones, pens, papers, computers. But we also need mental instruments: grammar, vocabulary words, evidence-gathering techniques, big-picture integration methods, persuasion strategies. Thinking while sitting meditatively all day in a lotus position doesn't require much instrumentation of any kind, but thinking and speaking well in the sense of project planning, problem-solving, negotiating, arguing, deliberating--that is, the active doings in the world (whether romantic, social, commercial, or political)--do require well-honed mental instruments. That's the Organon in a nutshell.

Are you an up-and-coming human being, a doer, go-getter, achiever, or at least you're choosing to become one? You need to wield the Organon.

Join us.