A group of SOPHIA members will meet and lead a discussion about Episode 1 of Philosophy Bakes Bread, on The Molemen and Plato’s Cave Today, with the University of Kentucky Philosophy Club!
If you can listen to the episode in advance, great! If not, no worries, as we have the handout about it so that we’re all on the same page.
Here’s the episode: https://
The meeting is meant to be genuinely conversational, and to introduce people to what SOPHIA is all about.
Join us!
| Date: | November 29, 2017 |
|---|---|
| Time: | 04:00-05:00 p.m. |
| Event: | Lexington SOPHIA Group Chat about Plato's Cave Today |
| Topic: | Plato's Cave Today |
| Sponsor: | The University of Kentucky Philosophy Club |
| Venue: | White Hall, room 231 |
| Location: | 140 Patterson Drive Lexington, KY 40506 USA |
| Public: | Public |
Not a member of SOPHIA yet? Consider joining!
SOPHIA is still working on the technical system that we will use to manage our chapters. For now, we will announce our chapters with a post like this one, for chapters that we’ll have made official, such as the Oxford MS Chapter. We have groups around the country, who’ve been working with SOPHIA for years, but we are just now formalizing our new system and mechanisms for making these chapters official. More information will be coming out soon about what’s involved. We will also be offering mini-grants to initial chapters who apply for the support. Here’s info about the chapter in Oxford, MS!
Chapter President: Dr. Deborah Mower
Core Members:
The University of Mississippi chapter of SOPHIA held its inaugural event of “The Great Debate” on April 27th, 2017. Each year, students from the UM Ethics Bowl Team will address a difficult question and debate the issues for an audience of students, faculty, staff, and all members of the community. This year’s question was “Should the governor of the state of Mississippi declare April ‘Confederate Heritage Month’?”
Governor Phil Bryant has declared April to be ‘Confederate Heritage Month’ in both 2016 and 2017. In 2016, the proclamation was on the Governor’s website with the purpose of the designation: “it is important for all Americans to reflect upon our nation’s past, to gain insight from our mistakes and successes, and to come to a full understanding that the lessons learned yesterday and today will carry us through tomorrow if we carefully and earnestly strive to understand and appreciate our heritage and our opportunities which lie before us” [CNN]. In 2017, the Governor’s office did not post the proclamation on the website, but a copy was posted on the Mississippi Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans website [MDSCV and now on their Facebook page]. As stated on the website, the purpose of the organization is “to encourage the preservation of history, perpetuate the hallowed memories of brave men, to assist in the observance of Memorial Day, to aid and support all members, widows and orphans, and to perpetuate the record of the services of every Southern Soldier” [MDSCV’s About page]. In addition, the home page explains that “The citizen-soldiers who fought for the Confederacy personified the best qualities of America. The preservation of liberty and freedom was the motivating factor in the South’s decision to fight the Second American Revolution. The tenacity with which Confederate soldiers fought underscored their belief in the rights guaranteed by the Constitution. These attributes are the underpinning of our democratic society and represent the foundation on which this nation was built” [MDSCV].
In The Great Debate, audience members were presented with a case with pertinent details, arguments, and concerns on both sides of the issue, along with a copy of common fallacies made in arguments. The UM Ethics Bowl Team each took a side of the issue and presented careful arguments, which were projected on screens via PowerPoint to help the audience follow the intricacies of their position. After the debate presentation, the team members fielded questions first from three guest judges (who modeled the kind of civil and insightful inquiry of the event) and then from the audience designed to clarify their initial arguments and to press follow-up points. After the Q and A and discussion, everyone was invited to a catered reception to continue the conversation informally. Through the clear presentation of claims and civil dialogue, we hope to institute this as a yearly event to demonstrate how to make progress on thorny ethical and political questions in our society through civil dialogue.
For more information about the Oxford MS Chapter of SOPHIA, contact Chapter President Mower.
SOPHIA now has some more CafePress gear ready for sale, featuring the Philosophy Bakes Bread logo. Each item purchased via CafePress contributes about $5 to our activities. So, when you show your support for SOPHIA, you’ll be supporting SOPHIA on several levels! If there are any items that you’re interested in, but that are not presently in our store, let us know by emailing the Executive Director! Or, tweet to us @SOPHIAchirp.
Head over to our Philosophy Bakes Bread collection at SOPHIA’s CafePress page. Get’em while they’re hot!
| By Shane Courtland |
One often hears the expression “You should live your life without regrets” in the same situations that one hears expressions such as “carpe diem” and “YOLO.” The basic idea is that you should live your life to the fullest. One day, if you are lucky to be living, you will be able to look back on your life. When you do so, you do not want to feel that it was wasted merely because you were too timid and afraid to embrace it. Have courage, these slogans implore – reach the fullest potential of a happy and fulfilling life.
In what follows, I want to articulate a different way to understand this expression.This understanding is inspired, in part, by a passage in Epictetus’s The Enchiridion. In passage #25, he writes:
“Is anyone preferred before you at an entertainment, or in a compliment, or in being admitted to a consultation? If these things are good, you ought to be glad that he has gotten them; and if they are evil, don’t be grieved that you have not gotten them. And remember that you cannot, without using the same means [which others do] to acquire things not in our own control, expect to be thought worthy of an equal share of them. For how can he who does not frequent the door of any [great] man, does not attend him, does not praise him, have an equal share with him who does? You are unjust, then, and insatiable, if you are unwilling to pay the price for which these things are sold, and would have them for nothing. For how much is lettuce sold? Fifty cents, for instance. If another, then, paying fifty cents, takes the lettuce, and you, not paying it, go without them, don’t imagine that he has gained any advantage over you. For as he has the lettuce, so you have the fifty cents which you did not give. So, in the present case, you have not been invited to such a person’s entertainment, because you have not paid him the price for which a supper is sold. It is sold for praise; it is sold for attendance. Give him then the value, if it is for your advantage. But if you would, at the same time, not pay the one and yet receive the other, you are insatiable, and a blockhead. Have you nothing, then, instead of the supper? Yes, indeed, you have: the not praising him, whom you don’t like to praise; the not bearing with his behavior at coming in.”
The basic idea, as far as I can tell, is that Epictetus is reminding us that everything in life has opportunity costs. In order to get something of value, one always forgoes something. The man who gets to go to the party paid for it by having to sell his praise. Epictetus then tells the reader, “But if you would, at the same time, not pay the one and yet receive the other, you are insatiable, and a blockhead.”
The Society of Philosophers in America (SOPHIA) announces the opening of Civil American, our latest venue for public philosophical engagement, released as a peer-reviewed digital journal on our Web site. Each piece will be released individually and will then be archived in a yearly volume. Civil American is a place for scholars in philosophy or other fields, students, and SOPHIA members to submit short essays, between 700 and 3,000 words (shorter and longer pieces will be considered), on topics of importance for living and policy-making, as individuals and communities.
Given our 2015 strategic planning initiative, the mission of the Society of Philosophers in America (SOPHIA) is “to use the tools of philosophical inquiry to improve people’s lives and enrich the profession of philosophy through conversation and community building.” In pursuit of that mission, two of our four strategic goals are “to use technology effectively” and to “to engage with the profession on public philosophy and digital humanities.”
To these ends, we open up SOPHIA’s online space as a forum for publicly engaged philosophy, to talk about issues and problems that matter to people both in and beyond the academy. Our emphasis is on accessibility of style and importance of subject matter. Following trends of digital publishing, we will consider the pieces released here to be in a volume gathered by year.
SOPHIA Trustees Dr. John Shook and Dr. Eric Thomas Weber first envisioned Civil American as a journal targeting general-audiences, a philosophical equivalent to the great publication, Scientific American. The United States have an immensely rich intellectual tradition, yet much discourse in the public sphere tends to be sensationalist, rather than civil and philosophical.
We welcome proposals for panels of submissions from groups interested in writing on topics in common. Gathered pieces may also be invited to join together in further advancement of their projects for growth in The Public Philosophy Journal‘s developmental and open peer-review process. Shorter projects can begin here and, if desired, be lengthened and deepened through such collaborations.
More information about Civil American is forthcoming now that we have selected the new editor for the journal, Dr. Shane Courtland. If you have any questions or proposals for submission to Civil American, you can email the Editor here.
Volume 1: 2016
