The Philosophy Society - July

The next meeting for the philosophy reading group will be Thursday, 1st July at 6pm. As always we will meet at 5.55pm at the entrance to the SU Bar at Park Campus. Paul Caddle is leading the meeting and will be presenting a paper entitled 'What actually is Buddhism?' The discussion does not require any preparatory reading other than a hand-out which will be distributed on the night. So there is not a reason not to come (not even World Cup because we finish at 7.30pm). I look forward to a highly attended and high-spirted discussion.


Shelley

Philosophy Society - May Meeting

We will be meeting the second Thursday, 13th, of May in a room yet to be confirmed at Park Campus. Please note that we will start at 6pm and end at 7.30pm. Instead of reading a text this month we will be watching one. The film is Code Unknown. If you are unable to source the film you can buy a used copy from amazon for a 5ver. Alternatively, I can post you my film once I've watched it. You may even be able to find it in Blockbusters or a local library.

Here is a description of the film:
"Code Inconnu takes the unknown and transforms it into the familiar. Just as in reality the characters exist and their personal story lines remain unfinished. In life we exist without permanent structure and our lives are only completed by death. Michael Haneke is telling us that 117 minutes can never encompass an entire life."

Let me know if you need some help finding the film. My email is: s0510427@connect.glos.ac.uk

Shelley

The Philosophy Society

Last month Paul Caddle ran the meeting on the topic of the philosophy of Bishop Berkeley. Unfortunately I posted a web-link for the reading which is a 74-page piece of writing by Berkeley. Paul had attached a small section of the reading (two pages) on a word document which I failed to see. I apologise if the daunting amount of reading made members shy away from the meeting. We had a healthy turn-out though, with or without a correct reading link. As you all know Berkeley reasoned the existence of God from the empirical evidence of objects existing despite an absence of human perception. To Berkeley, the perception of God locates objects in time and space. Here are the limericks Ronald Knox wrote on behalf of Berkeley's idea:

There was a young man who said God,

must find it exceedingly odd

when he finds that the tree

continues to be

when noone's about in the Quad

Dear Sir, your astonishment's odd

I'm always about in the Quad

And that's why the tree

continues to be

Since observed by, yours faithfully, God

The April meeting will be held on 8th April. I am awaiting an email from Park to confirm which room we will be allocated for the evening. We will meet at 7pm outside the SU Bar and venture to the room together. We will discuss the Philosophy of History and the reading is (eight pages) by Walter Benjamin:

http://www.efn.org/~dredmond/Theses_on_History.PDF

Look forward to having an invigorating discussion.

The Philosophy Society: February Meeting

The Philosophy Society reading group is meeting tomorrow evening, Thursday, 11th February, 7pm in The Gallery Room above the SU Bar at Park Campus. The set reading is a few words from Roland Barthes in the form of excerpts from his book Mythologies. The reading is very short: if you haven't read it already there is still plenty of time to do so. The link is below.

If you have any questions please contact me using this email address: s0510427@connect.glos.ac.uk

I look forward to seeing all of you and having a vigorous discussion.

Shelley

http://carbon.ucdenver.edu/~mryder/itc_data/barthes/myth_today.html

Philosophy Society Update

The October meeting for the Philosophy Society will be held on the 8th, at 7pm in The Gallery Room above the SU Bar at Park Campus. All following meetings will fall on the first Thursday of the month.

I found an interesting dialogue on "Before the Law" that you may like:

http://www.herzogbr.net/kafka/before-discussion1.htm

Also, an allegorical similarity has been drawn between "Before the Law" and the Seinfeld episode "The Chinese Restaurant", where entrance is obstructed by what appears to be an amorphous set of temporal circumstances (note how bribery and charm are used to seduce "the gatekeeper" in Kafka and in Seinfeld). What do you think? Is it fair to draw a comparison between the two? Here are the links to the episode (each about seven minutes):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnoV45-1bJE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnqDAMKDN74&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzUUAdAvQIA&feature=related

The link to "Before the Law" is:

http://records.viu.ca/~Johnstoi/Kafka/beforethelaw.htm

And Derrida's essay "Law of Genre":

http://mission17.org/documents/Derrida_LawOfGenre.pdf

Any questions or comments can be made here or to Shelley s0510427@glos.ac.uk

The Philosophy Society September 2009

The Philosophy Society has ended its first year with the promise of a successful second year now dawning. We have a new wave of fervour from a long list of Freshers to add to our small, but dedicated, core group. Over the past year we have turned our attention to:

• business ethics by looking at a 1970s article by economist Milton Friedman, "The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits" (in other words the business of business is business), and a short story by B. Traven, "Assembly Line"
• political philosophy by reading Machiavelli's The Prince and Thoreau's Civil Disobedience
• Herman Melville's short story Bartleby the Scrivener in tandem with Emerson's The Transcendentalist (which is considered the inspiration behind Bartleby)
• Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, studying the two famous chapters "Rebellion" and "The Grand Inquisitor"
• Paul Caddle, one of our members, led a meeting on paradoxes, which generated a rousing round of comments
• Christopher Norris, a philosopher from the University of Cardiff, who gave a paper entitled, "The New Musicology: What's it all about?", followed by a lively discussion
• Robert Ellis, another guest speaker, who gave a paper, "Moral Objectivity and the Middle Way". For more information, you can look at Robert's web-site at this address: http://www.moralobjectivity.net/
• the philosophical themes underpinning the two films Arlington Road and Primer

For our October meeting we are reading "Before the Law" from Kafka's The Trial found at this address: http://records.viu.ca/~Johnstoi/Kafka/beforethelaw.htm. Also, if you are interested in further study, please read Derrida's "Law of Genre" found at this address: http://mission17.org/documents/Derrida_LawOfGenre.pdf.

The Philosophy Society meets (usually) on the first Thursday of every month at 7pm in The Gallery Room above the SU Bar at Park Campus. However, I am still uncertain whether the meeting will be on the 1st or 8th of October. I will post and send emails with this information in due course.

If you have any queries about The Philosophy Society please contact Shelley Campbell s0510427@glos.ac.uk

Philosophy Society Update

Despite the end of lectures for 2008/2009, hopefully some students are still around for The Philosophy Society meeting when we will be discussing Civil Disobedience by Thoreau.

As always, we are meeting in The Gallery Room at Park Campus at 7pm. The date is this Thursday, 2nd April.

Civil Disobedience is a short essay and can be easily read between now and Thursday. If you do not have the link: http://eserver.org/thoreau/civil.html

I am looking forward to a lively discussion,

Shelley Campbell

Update on The Philosophy Society

Hello,

There was a lively response to Paul Caddle's session on Paradoxes at the meeting last week. Thank you to Paul for bringing the idea and leading the discussion. The next meeting will be the second Thursday of January. The date is the 8th, in The Gallery Room above the SU Bar at Park Campus. We decided to read "Bartleby the Scrivener" by Herman Melville and "The Transcendentalist" by Emerson, the essay that inspired Melville to write Bartleby. There are text links and an audio link for the short story and the essay on the blog for the philosophy reading group that Emily set up last year:

http://readingphilosophy.wordpress.com/

We can use this blog for a discussion of our current reading or for any other comments you may have.

If you have any questions contact Shelley s0510427.

Philosophy Society Update and Paradoxes

The next meeting will be 4th December, 7pm, in the Gallery Room above the SU Bar at Park Campus. Please come because the Poker Society covets our first Thursday of the month time slot for the Gallery Room. They have the room every Thursday but the first Thursday of the month and would happily take over our slot - their attendance strength surprisingly surpasses ours. If you are interested in becoming a member of the Philosophy Society please pay the membership fee and come to the next meeting!

We know that assignment deadlines are flooding in at this time of year so we decided not to burden semester schedules with extra homework. So for the next meeting there is no preliminary reading. Paul Caddle is going to present Paradoxes for discussion. There is no preparation needed because Paul believes that encountering these paradoxes without any particular agenda will enliven the debate.

Look forward to seeing all of you on December 4th. Don't hesitate to contact me with any questions,

Shelley

The Philosophy Society

We had an exciting response to The Philosophy Society at the Freshers' Fayre. Over 70 people expressed interest and want to be included on the mailing list. All those (bar two - because their email addresses were disabled) have received an email as a reminder that our first meeting is 2nd October, at 7pm, in The Gallery Room above the SU Bar at Park Campus. We will discuss the direction for the group. Please bring suggestions of books, essays, short stories, ideas, issues that you may like to discuss in the future.

For those who may be interested but did not receive the email I have set some reading for discussion. I thought an interesting theme may be Business Ethics, as some business students showed an interest in the philosophy group. A very short story by the mysterious writer Traven shows one point of view and the Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman shows another.

http://academics.triton.edu/uc/traven.html

https://webmail.glos.ac.uk/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.colorado.edu/studentgroups/libertarians/issues/friedman-soc-resp-business.html

You may also like to have a look at the philosophy reading group blog from last year organised by Emily. We can use this blog this year to engage in discussion.

http://readingphilosophy.wordpress.com/

Look forward to meeting all of you Thursday.

Shelley

Philosophy & Ethics Reading Group

Some developments for the Philosophy & Ethics reading group we run:

We're hoping to set it up as an official student society which will give us additional benefits, and more importantly, a regular place to meet.

For this to be set up, it needs an official committee (of which Shelley Campbell has kindly volunteered to chair), and at least 10 signed up members.

Can you let Shelley know if you are willing to sign up (obviously you need to be a member of the University of Gloucestershire) by emailing her on s0510427@glos.ac.uk

We are also hoping to get a stand at the Freshers' Fayre in order to widen our membership.

Please let myself or Shelley know if you have any other questions.

Philosophy & Ethics Reading Group

Just a reminder that our next (and last) meeting for this year is Tuesday 6th May at 6pm in Bar Ha! Ha!, Montpelier.

We will be discussing Anna Karenina but please still come even if you haven't managed to read it yet as we will be discussing the programme for next year.

I look forward to seeing you all.

Philosophy & Ethics Reading Group

Our next reading will be Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. We will discuss this at our next two meetings so will break it into the two volumes. It can be found in various places online but it is probably much better to get hold of a hard copy.

Due to the Easter break, our next meeting will be 6pm, Tuesday 8th April at Bar Ha! Ha! in Montpellier.

More details can be found on our wordpress site: http://readingphilosophy.wordpress.com/

Please let me know if you have any further questions.

Philosophy & Ethics Reading Group

Our next book is Dostoevsky's 'The Double'. A short description can be found on the wordpress site: readingphilosophy
Our next meeting will be Tuesday 5th February. Time and place to be confirmed.

Philosophy Reading Group

Following a couple of hours dissecting Sartre's Nausea last night and discussing the implications of accepting the Existentialist position, we have agreed our next book (actually, it's a play) to be Arcadia by Tom Stoppard. More information can be found on the wordpress site:
http://readingphilosophy.wordpress.com/

Our next meeting is on Tuesday 4th December so I hope to see as many of you there as possible.

Philosophy Reading Group Blog

Just to remind those of you who are part of the Philosophy & Ethics reading group (and those who aren't) and who are currently reading Sartre's Nausea; we have our own blog open for comments on http://readingphilosophy.wordpress.com/

Please do post your thoughts / ideas as any discussion will be helpful for when we next meet.