Posted on Thursday, August 9, 2018

The Philosopher Within You

One-sheet for SOPHIA Conversations

One-Sheet in Adobe PDF.

SOPHIA is grateful for permission from Dr. Andrew Pessin to share with you the following excerpt, “The Philosopher Within You,” from his book The 60-Second Philosopher. Leaders of the Lexington SOPHIA Chapter got together to prepare for our next chapter meeting, read over Pessin’s essay, and drafted some guiding questions for our newest one-sheet document. These documents are meant to make the facilitation of fun, meaningful conversations easy.

The authors of the questions include Caroline A. Buchanan, Erik Jarvis, James William Lincoln, and Eric Thomas Weber. Click on the adobe logo on right or on the image of the one-sheet here to open a printable, Adobe PDF version of the one-sheet, which we plan to print front and back (keeping it on one sheet…).

For a printable Adobe PDF of the One-Sheet, click on this image or on the Adobe logo above.

Thanks to Dr. Pessin for permission to use this excerpt! We plan on prepare a number of one-sheets based on short essays from his book.

SOPHIA chapters interested in a copy of Pessin’s book can request one from SOPHIA by emailing Eric Thomas Weber at etweber@gmail.com. Anyone interested is encouraged to get a copy of the book too: Andrew Pessin, The 60-Second Philosopher (London: One-World Publications, 2013).

Posted on Wednesday, July 25, 2018

Ways of Knowing in Nature

One-sheet for SOPHIA Conversations

Printable version in Adobe PDF.

Here is the revised one-sheet document that we updated after using the original as guiding conversation starter to talk about “Ways of Knowing in Nature” in our July 2018 online SOPHIA symposium. This document was originally crafted by Drs. Andrea Christelle and Robin Weeks, who work together in Sedona Philosophy. The following is the content of the one-sheet document. You can also open and print a downloadable Adobe PDF version of this one-sheet here or by clicking on the Adobe Acrobat logo on this page.

Ways of Knowing in Nature:

The Effects of Place on Knowledge & Intuition

By Dr. Andrea Christelle and Dr. Robin Weeks of SedonaPhilosophy.com

This conversation-starter is written as a follow-up to the one-sheet about “The Molemen and Plato’s Cave Today,” on Episode 1 of Philosophy Bakes Bread.

This topic is an invitation to explore what it means to know, and how the way we attend to the world affects both the way we know things as well as what we know.

Beautiful places inspire us. People often visit beautiful natural settings to experience a connection to the world and to spend time outdoors. Some people say they come to seek understanding, or to develop a deeper relationship with nature. In this conversation, we will explore how being in nature may affect not just what we know, but how we know, and how this knowledge is connected to science and intuition.

Questions:

1) What do we mean by nature?

2) What does it mean to have a relationship to nature?

3) What is the difference between knowledge and intuition related to nature?

4) What are different ways of understanding and relating to the world when we are in less modified environments?

5) How does a greater connection with nature help us to know ourselves?

6) Is experiencing beauty a way of knowing, and if so, how does it differ from knowledge in the physical sciences?

7) What obligations does the public have to make beautiful environments accessible to all?

Posted on Wednesday, July 18, 2018

Kneeling and Civil Protest

One-sheet for SOPHIA Conversations

Recent protests calling attention to police brutality have taken the form of kneeling during the playing of the national anthem at football games and other sporting events. Episode 53 of Philosophy Bakes Bread, on “Kneeling and Civil Protest,” with Dr. Arnold Farr, focused on the criticisms and defenses of players for their protests, as well as the message that protesters have tried to convey. SOPHIA member and UKY graduate student James William Lincoln created a SOPHIA One-Sheet document about the episode for use in local or online discussions about the topic.

In July of 2018, Dr. Farr kindly joined leaders of the Lexington SOPHIA Chapter to hold a meeting testing out the one-sheet document that Lincoln created, and the meeting was a great success. We encourage other chapters to try out a meeting on the basis of this document. Those who wish can also listen to the radio and podcast episode on which the sheet was based. The idea behind the one-sheet, however, is that people don’t have to have heard the episode in order to join in a rich discussion about current and important matters for people to consider today. You can download a printable Adobe PDF version of the one-sheet document here, or by clicking on the image of the one-sheet above.

Version 2 of the One-sheet in PDF. The original used in the meeting is here.

On Friday, July 20th of 2018 from 2-3:30pm US ET, SOPHIA will hold an online symposium on “Ways of Knowing in Nature: The Effects of Place on Knowledge & Intuition.” We will be using this one-sheet document for the conversation (Updated! and here’s the original).

Our facilitators for this meeting will be Dr. Andrea Christelle and Dr. Robin Weeks of Sedona Philosophy in Sedona, AZ.

We will hold the meeting via Zoom Video Conferencing. Here are the instructions on how to join the conversation:

Join from PC, Mac, Linux, or mobile device: https://uky.zoom.us/j/163766546

Or iPhone one-tap (US Toll): 16468769923,163766546# or 16699006833,163766546#

Or Telephone:
Dial:
+1 646 876 9923 (US Toll)
+1 669 900 6833 (US Toll)
Meeting ID: 163 766 546
International numbers available: https://zoom.us/u/xYrOxhXB

Or Skype for Business (Lync):
SIP:163766546@lync.zoom.us

Date:	July 20, 2018
Time:	02:00 - 3:30 p.m. US ET
Event:	Ways of Knowing in Nature, a SOPHIA Online Symposium
Topic:	Ways of Knowing in Nature
Sponsor:	Sedona Philosophy
Venue:	Zoom Video Conferencing Platform
Public:	Public

Posted on Friday, March 16, 2018

The Molemen & Plato’s Cave Today

One-sheet for SOPHIA Conversations

Printable PDF.

Here is our one-sheet document on “The Molemen and Plato’s Cave Today.” For short, you can just call it “Plato’s Cave Today.” The idea is to think about problems for conceiving of truth and knowledge, which lead to difficulties in trusting politicians, news sources, scientists, and more. Plato’s famous cave metaphor is explained in short for anyone who’s unfamiliar, and we invite chapters to pick a question that they’d most like to talk about together. After thinking about it and perhaps another for a time, flip over the page and consider the “Bread Breaking Questions,” questions about how and where the concepts discussed so far are sometimes applied and with challenges.

This one-sheet document is part of a series to come of one-sheets about episodes of Philosophy Bakes Bread. We’re calling them “Slices of Philosophically Baked Bread.” It would be great if local SOPHIA Chapter participants had the chance to listen to episodes of Philosophy Bakes Bread (such as this one, Episode 1 of the show), but we try to avoid requiring homework before people come to our events.

Instead, we want to ensure that everyone has a document that is one sheet of paper (front and back sometimes) that each person can read at the start of the event in a few minutes. Then, conversation can open up with everyone literally on the same page.

James William Lincoln has kindly taken on the job of creating our one-sheet documents for each episode of Philosophy Bakes Bread. We’ll be posting and cataloging one-sheets on other matters and topics, such as on pieces published in Civil American, plus we plan to post one-sheets that our members and chapter leaders gather or create.

If you have ideas for future one-sheet documents that could be great for SOPHIA to use in our chapter meetings, let us know! Email Executive Director Eric Thomas Weber with your idea.