Access to the Small Meeting Room is either through the main hall ie the Ormskirk Room (where there may be another group) 0r by the rear door. From the car park, walk past the main door. The rear door is just round the corner, facing the same way as the main door. It is normally behind a steel shutter which I will raise for the meeting.
We cover a very varied set of topics – philosophy of science, of politics and of morality and more. Our recent topics have been: May – Rationality, and July – Plato and Popper on Democracy; August – What is mathematical truth? and September – Does global warming impose an obligation on individuals to restrict their carbon emissions? and November – Kant’s moral philosophy
Next Meeting – Tuesday 10th December – Virtue Ethics
This is the idea that the development of virtue rather following rules is what is (or should be) primary in morality; that the virtuous life constitues and promotes human flourishing and is the best life, both for society and the individual. This was first proposed by Aristotle but was revived by various philosophers from the mid C20th and is now one of the three main ethical philosophies, along side utilitarianism and versons of Kant.
Tuesday 14th January – Kant’s Prologomena.
This is kant’s own sort of summary of his Critique of Pure Reason, where he sets out and defends a style of metaphysics. Very crudely Kant argues that some a priori knowledge (not resting in experience) is necessary if we are to derive any knowledge from experience, and that total scepticism is self-refuting in that it undercuts its own conditions (that there is an I who is in doubt). It was suggested that I might be able to make the Prologomena clearer! I am working on it!
Topics for further meetings have yet to be decided.
