Philosophy

We are tackling one of the classics for this meeting: David Hume and his An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Published in 1748, it has profoundly influenced epistemological studies to this…

We will finish discussing David Hume's classic, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. In the second half of the book Hume talks about free will and critiques miracles, among other topics. These…

We will begin a discussion of the book, Philosophy in the Flesh: the Embodied Mind & Its Challenge to Western Thought (1999), by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson. For the 9th we…

We will continue with the book, Philosophy in the Flesh: the Embodied Mind & Its Challenge to Western Thought, by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson. This is a long book and…

Note that April 11 is not the second Wednesday of the month, the time we have been meeting recently. We will finish discussing the book, Philosophy in the Flesh: the…

We will begin reading A History of Philosophy in the Twentieth Century (2001) by Christian Delacampagne. The paperback version retails for around $28 ($23 on Amazon), but there are used books…

We will continue reading A History of Philosophy in the Twentieth Century by Christian Delacampagne. For the 8th we will discuss chapters 2 and 3, in which the author covers the development of…

We plan to conclude our discussion of A History of Philosophy in the Twentieth Century by Christian Delacampagne. Early in my study of philosophy I was told that if you really want…

For this meeting we are going to begin a discussion about distributive justice. First, we'll do an overview. Both the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy have articles on distributive…

We will discuss a paper by Nancy Fraser, “Social Movements vs. Disciplinary Bureaucracies: The Discourses of Social Needs” (1987) Center for Humanistic Studies Occasional Papers, Number 8, 3-37. For a copy of…

We will begin reading The Human Condition (1958) by Hannah Arendt. You can find a new paperback of this book for around $22 or an ebook for about $15. Since this…

We will continue our discussion of The Human Condition by Hannah Arendt by reading Parts III and IV. This is not a difficult book to read, but the arguments can be complex…

We will finish up our discussion of Hannah Arendt's The Human Condition, covering Parts V and VI, in which she discusses action and the modern age, drawing her final conclusions…

For this meeting, rather than a book or other reading, we are going to assign a topic. The topic is Punishment. Both this meeting and our one in March will…

We will read and discuss the Little Book of Restorative Justice (2015) by Howard Zehr. This is an inexpensive (less than $10), short book that we will cover in a single…

We will begin a discussion of the book When They Severed Earth from Sky: How the Human Mind Shapes Myth (2004) by Elizabeth Wayland Barber and Paul T. Barber. For the 12th we'll…

  We will conclude talking about myth and the mind as presented in the book When They Severed Earth from Sky: How the Human Mind Shapes Myth by Elizabeth Wayland Barber and…

First, please note that this time is different than our usual second Wednesday of the month schedule. For this session, we will begin the book, The Case Against Reality: How…

We will discuss chapters five through seven from the book, The Case Against Reality: How Evolution Hid the Truth from our Eyes, by Donald Hoffman. Just to be safe, we will…

We will conclude our reading of The Case Against Reality: How Evolution Hid the Truth from our Eyes by Donald Hoffman. People have reacted very differently to the thesis that Hoffman…

We are going to start reading a new book: Corruptible (2021) by Brian Klass. This book is about power and why those who abuse it so often have it. Does power really corrupt?…

We will complete our discussion of the book Corruptible by Brian Klass. Note that this group will be meeting on the third Wednesday of the month rather than our usual second…

We will be beginning a new book, Aristotle's Way: How Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Life (2019) by Edith Hall. For the 15th we'll read through chapter 2. While we don't usually like…

We will discuss chapters 3 – 6 of Aristotle's Way: How Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Life by Edith Hall. Please note that while Aristotle's philosophy has helped many people, neither…

We will conclude our discussion of Aristotle's Way: How Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Life by Edith Hall. After having read this book, it won't matter if you've been adhering to the…

On Valentine's Day we will be starting a new book, Thought: A Very Short Introduction (2013) by Tim Bayne, a part of the Very Short Introduction series from Oxford University Press.…

  We will finish discussing the book Thought: A Very Short Introduction by Tim Bayne. A short introductory book on a broad topic can lead to some interesting disagreements with what the…

Note that this is the third Wednesday of the month, not the second Wednesday, our usual meeting day. We are starting a new book, An Aristotelian Account of Induction: Creating Something from Nothing by Louis Groarke, part of the McGill-Queen's Studies in the History of Ideas.

For this meeting we will discuss the topic of “Power and Discourse” by reading three short and very accessible articles which can be found online. Powercube         https://www.powercube.net/analyse-power/…

We will continue our discussion of the book, An Aristotelian Account of Induction: Creating Something from Nothing by Louis Groarke, by reading chapter 3. In this chapter, the author, having finished his survey and critique of concepts of induction falling between Aristotle and contemporary philosophy, starts to dig deeper into what Aristotle regarded as inductive reasoning. We are hoping that reading this will induce you to reason seriously about coming to our meeting so that we can induct you into our membership. Deductively, it's a no-brainer.

The MISF Philosophy Study Group plans to have its next meeting on Wednesday, June 12, at 7:00 pm via Zoom. We will be continuing our discussion of the book An Aristotelian…

For this meeting we will discuss chapters 6 and 7 of the book, An Aristotelian Account of Induction: Creating Something from Nothing, by Louis Groarke. For those who might need a little persuading to attend, I have put together a notable argument:

All books about Aristotle are delightful. This is a book about Aristotle. Therefore, this book is delightful.

The next meeting of the MISF Philosophy Study Group is on Wednesday, August 14, at 7:00 pm via Zoom. We will conclude our discussion of the book, An Aristotelian Account of Induction: Creating Something from Nothing, by Louis Groarke with the attendance of the author, himself.

Our book for this meeting is What Would Nietzsche Do?: Philosophical Solutions to Everyday Problems (2017) by Marcus Weeks. A paperback version of the book lists for $20 but can be had…

At our last meeting we discussed the book, What Would Nietzsche Do?: Philosophical Solutions to Everyday Problems, by Marcus Weeks. This book took various problems that people may encounter in everyday…

The MISF Philosophy Study Group meets next on Wednesday, November 13, at 7:00 pm via Zoom. For this meeting we will discuss Friedrich Nietzsche's classic, On the Genealogy of Morals, first…

We will continue our reading of On the Genealogy of Morals by Friedrich Nietzsche by discussing his Second Treatise, “'Guilt,' 'Bad Conscious,' and Related Matters.” If you wish to remain guilt-free with…

Note that this meeting is the first Monday of the month, rather than our usual second Wednesday. We will finish our discussion of On the Genealogy of Morals by Friedrich Nietzsche by…

We will be beginning a new book, The Philosophy of Freedom, by Rudolf Steiner. Originally published in 1894, this book has been translated many times and has been very influential…

During this meeting we will finish our discussion of the book, The Philosophy of Freedom, by Rudolf Steiner by reading Parts II and III. In Part I Steiner laid out…