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.

Online Resources

There are lots of excellent resources on the Royal Institute of Philosophy site.

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.

There is a large set of fallacies.

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.

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.

There are two excellent, academic, sites the Stanford encyclopaedia and the Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy

Philosophy the basics short summaries of various aspects of philosophy

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.

Forum for philosophy - events essays and podcasts

Philosophy Groups

There is some excellent advice about going about setting up and supporting your group on
the U3A home site.

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.

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:

BBC R4 global philosopher

Philosophy bites http://www.philosophybites.com/

This is superb. HOPWAG

Reith lectures

Gresham College lectures

In our time

BBC ethics site.

This one takes you to the OU site where there are many interesting courses.

Ethics bites from OU

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

Crash course

Mark Thorsby a range of full ‘course’ videos

Gregory Sadler. A range of detailed videos covering a huge range of philosophies.

There is a large list of philosophy videos on YouTube.

There are some good guides at The Philosophy Academy.

Philosophy Guides

There are guides for different parts of philosophy.

Homepage for Online Philosophy Course

There are a whole load of courses in various formats.

philosophy 24/7

philosophy bites

A history of philosophy, Arthur Holmes, is an excellent complete course with a Christian angle.

Texts: there are many anthologies (especially the excellent Oxford and Cambridge ones) that are available electronically through your local library

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.

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

Subject advice