Philosophy
Our Subject Advisor, Shri Sharma, has created a u3a Philosophy Padlet Page
(Padlet is an online bulletin board) and you can access it here https://padlet.com/shrisharma108 or by clicking on the images below.
Recommended Reading
I can re-iterate Ed Link’s recommendation of Nigel Warburton’s book Philosophy The Basics. You can google it.
Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy Paperback by Simon Blackburn
Philosophy: The Basics by Nigel Warburton. A complimentary text to this is Philosophy: The Classics by Nigel Warburton.
The Philosophy Book by Will Buckingham (Author), Peter J. King (Author), Douglas Burnham (Author), Marcus Weeks (Author), Clive Hill (Author), John Marenbon (Author), DK (Editor), Sarah Tomley (Editor)
Western Philosophy: An Anthology (Blackwell Philosophy Anthologies) by John G. Cottingham
The Philosopher’s Way A Text With Readings Thinking Critically About Profound Ideas by John Chaffee, City University of New York
From Africa to Zen: An Invitation to World Philosophy: An Invitation to World Philosophy, 2nd Edition Paperback – 1 Jan. 2003 by Robert C. Solomon (Editor), Kathleen M. Higgins (Series Editor)
Philosophy: A Text with Readings Paperback – Student Edition, 1 Jan. 2016 by Manuel Velasquez (Author)
Introducing Philosophy: A Text with Integrated Readings by Professor Robert C. Solomon up to 10th edition
These are two good and easy to read texts both by the same author, that cover similar material from different angles:
Does the Centre Hold? An Introduction to Western Philosophy. Donald Palmer
Looking at Philosophy: The Unbearable Heaviness of Philosophy Made Lighter, Fourth Edition. Donald Palmer
I recommend that whoever takes on the role of philosophy co-ordinator reads the introduction to this book. I will add the additional warning that you might end up with more questions rather than answers!
I would say that it is vital to understand how philosophers do their arguing through various types of arguments. These are not in this book but can be found elsewhere.
For those who would like to dip their toes in other philosophies, there are a couple of texts which I have found which would be suitable as a starting point. They are:
- Asian Philosophies (7th Edition) by Jonh M Koller
- Eastern Philosophy by Ram-Prasad Chakravarthi
- Classical Indian Philosophy: A history of philosophy without any gaps (Volume 5) by Peter Adamson and Jonardon Ganeri
- Philosophy in the Islamic World: A history of philosophy without any gaps (Volume 3) by Peter Adamson
- A Source Book in Indian Philosophy by Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (Author), Charles A. Moore (Author)
- World Philosophies: A Historical Introduction Cooper, David E.
- A Companion to World Philosophies by Ron Bontekoe, Eliot Deutsch
- The Oxford Handbook of World Philosophy by Jay L. Garfield (Editor), William Edelglass (Editor)
- A Practical Guide to World Philosophies Selves, Worlds, and Ways of Knowing - Bloomsbury Introductions to World Philosophies. Monika Kirloskar-Steinbach, Leah Kalmanson
There are podcasts to go with the Peter Admason books on the History of Philosophy without any gaps site.
The Indian philosophy section is here:
https://historyofphilosophy.net/series/classical-indian-philosophy
The Islamic philosophy is here:
https://historyofphilosophy.net/series/islamic-world
There is also a large Africana philosophy, it is here:
https://historyofphilosophy.net/series/africana-philosophy
Bryan Van Norden has a youtube site where there is a really good series of videos on Chinese philosophy. It is the Chinese Philosophy class lectures:
https://www.youtube.com/c/BryanVanNordenPhilosophy/playlists
Online Resources
There are lots of excellent resources on the Royal Institute of Philosophy site. It is here:
https://www.royalinstitutephilosophy.org/events-and-talks/
There is a good (but not very simple) series of explanations and questions about bits of logic. I would use this carefully – many people in our group found this a bit difficult. But it is great as a reference
http://philosophy.lander.edu/logic/structure.html
There is a large set of fallacies here; http://utminers.utep.edu/omwilliamson/ENGL1311/fallacies.htm
In particular, there is an excellent series of YouTube videos from Crash Course. The one philosophy is especially good. Although it seems to be targeting 12 to 14 year olds (my intellectual level!), the content of each video is excellent. I would suggest the first 3 videos, which deal with argumentation on a much simpler level, at least.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1A_CAkYt3GY&list=PL8dPuuaLjXtNgK6MZucdYldNkMybYIHKR
When you get to terms or phrases which are philosophical and that you're not quite clear about I can recommend the book called Philosopher's Toolkit by Bagini. You can google this too.
I would strongly encourage everyone to come to terms with the important aspect of understanding arguments, especially deductive inductive and analogical arguments. Also people should be aware of argument fallacies. (see above). Arguments are explained in the first 3 youtube videos of crash course.
There is a free argumentation course from the Carnegie Melton Open Learning Initiative here: https://oli.cmu.edu/jcourse/lms/students/syllabus.do?section=df3cb3f10a0001dc0fc0bc307edccf7ddccf7d
There are two excellent, academic, sites the Stanford encyclopaedia
and the Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy
http://www.iep.utm.edu/
Philosophy the basics short summaries of various aspects of philosophy https://www.philosophybasics.com/
Here are a few things you may like to have a look at. They provide rich materials over and above basic ‘introduction to philosophy’ level.
Royal institute of philosophy - weekly talks, past talks , downloadable materials, etc. an excellent resource.
https://www.royalinstitutephilosophy.org/
Forum for philosophy - events essays and podcasts
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/theforum/
Philosophy Groups
There is some excellent advice about going about setting up and supporting your group on
the U3A home site here: members-area/support/advice-and-guidance#interest
Look under document categories/ interest groups. The relevant document is handbook for group convenors/leaders.
In our group, our philosophy convener (the splendid) Richard Batchelor has developed a set of guidelines about how to engage in discussion and how to ask questions or change the subject.
- Level 0 I haven’t read the preparatory material
- Level 1 I read the material, but I didn’t understand it
- Level 2 I read the material and can understand the question being asked
- Level 3 I understand the question and picked out some key points made
- Level 4 I read the paper and followed up some ideas and have found further material on the topic to talk about.
In framing questions Blooms taxonomy is a really good way to do it.
Explanation of Bloom’s taxonomy can be found here: https://kodosurvey.com/blog/ultimate-guide-understanding-blooms-taxonomy
When doing philosophy it is important to have a group where discussion takes place. It is The Great Conversation. You should try to frame a question for the session. See Socrates café guide for how to go about this if you need to.
If you are starting a group then do consider covering all the major divisions of the subject: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, political philosophy. Again see crash course.
The other ways of approaching the meetings or sessions. For example:
- Presentation of philosophers/ ideas/ specific things (time /space/ justice/ existentialism /consciousness /aesthetics/ethics etc) research and presentation by members of the group followed by discussion.
- Follow a book course
- Read and discuss actual papers (e.g. Nagel’s what it is like to be a bat).
- Read papers or articles during the meeting and try to resolve the ideas and arguments presented.
- Use specific podcasts to stimulate discussion.
- For and against debates: good especially for ethics.
- Take roles in the dialogues and do reading in the meeting and again consider the arguments.
- Read and discuss ideas.
- Follow MOOCs or University courses:
EdX https://www.edx.org/course
Coursera https://www.coursera.org/
FutureLearn https://www.futurelearn.com/
Yale Open Courses http://oyc.yale.edu/
OU open learn http://www.open.edu/openlearn/
BBC R4 global philosopher http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b075ft6f
Philosophy bites http://www.philosophybites.com/
This is superb. HOPWAG https://www.historyofphilosophy.net/
Reith lectures http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00729d9
Gresham College lectures https://www.gresham.ac.uk/search/?terms=philosophy
In our time http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01f0vzr/episodes/downloads
BBC ethics site. http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/guide/
This one takes you to the OU site where there are many interesting courses.
Ethics bites from OU http://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/culture/philosophy/ethics-bites-podcast-the-full-series
There is a series of podcasts on African philosophies (Africana) and these can be found under the ‘history of philosophy without any gaps’ in the resources page. It is also available in google podcasts.
- Youtube videos:
School of Life https://www.youtube.com/user/schooloflifechannel
Crash course https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8dPuuaLjXtNgK6MZucdYldNkMybYIHKR
Mark Thorsby a range of full ‘course’ videos
https://www.youtube.com/user/PhilosophicalTechne/playlists
Gregory Sadler. A range of detailed videos covering a huge range of philosophies: https://www.youtube.com/c/GregoryBSadler/playlists
There is a large list of philosophy videos here:
https://www.youtube.com/@Philosophy_Overdose/playlists
There are some good guides at The Philosophy Academy:
https://www.youtube.com/@thephilosophyacademy/playlists
Philosophy Guides
There are guides for different parts of philosophy here:
Homepage for Online Philosophy Course:
http://philosophy.lander.edu/intro/webCT.shtml
there are a whole load of courses in various formats here:
http://www.openculture.com/philosophy_free_courses
Philosophy overdose- some full courses are here:
https://www.youtube.com/user/soultorment27/playlists
philosophy 24/7
philosophy bites
A history of philosophy Arthur Holmes this is an excellent complete course with a Christian angle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yat0ZKduW18&list=PL9GwT4_YRZdBf9nIUHs0zjrnUVl-KBNSM
introduction to philosophy can be found here:
https://cosmolearning.org/courses/introduction-philosophy/
Philosophy and the Science of Human Nature:
https://cosmolearning.org/courses/philosophy-and-the-science-of-human-nature-568/
there are some other philosophy courses here (in cosmolearning above) but a couple of links are broken.
This is some useful stuff here: The philosophy.com
https://www.the-philosophy.com/philosophers
Texts: there are many anthologies (especially the excellent Oxford and Cambridge ones) that are available electronically through the libraries.
Squashed philosopher shortened versions of texts: http://sqapo.com/index.htm
Other things to consider
Talks by ‘experts’ External presentations
Is there a philosophy or humanities department at your local University who is prepared to do something? Get in touch with the outreach officer who should be able to direct you to the relevant people.
Working with / introducing philosophy to a local school. Maybe something related to the A level syllabus.
Reading or Acting out Plato’s dialogues. Followed by discussions! Combine it with introducing it to schools?
Follow the AQA A level syllabus and even take the exam (!)
Philosophy Now has articles and podcasts https://philosophynow.org/
Clarifying terminology: Philosopher’s Toolkit by Bagini
Discussions of recent issues: in local/ UK / Europe/ world – most issues have a philosophical angle or basis.
Future consequences: AI /robots /gene technology / advances in medicine / transhuman
The development of Western philosophy in a nutshell - Philosophy poster