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.

Newsletters

Philosophy Newsletter -June 2022

Philosophy Newsletter -October 2021

Philosophy Newsletter - March 2021

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 are many lectures on youtube here:

//www.youtube.com/@RoyIntPhilosophy">https://www.youtube.com/@RoyIntPhilosophy

There is also a podcast series called Thinking Hard and Slow here:

https://podcasts.google.com/search/royal%20institute%20of%20philosophy

There are lectures, notes and a textbook associated with 6 philosophy courses including and Introduction to Philosophy and an Ethics course here:

http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/~barsp59601/text/101/notes/notes.html

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.

The Open University’s OpenLearn has a free course called doing philosophy. This really is excellent. It is here:

http://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/culture/philosophy/introducing-philosophy/content-section-0

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

https://plato.stanford.edu/

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/

There are many ways to do philosophy but it is important to have a group where discussion takes place – the actual ‘doing’ philosophy.

Tips for running a philosophy group can be found here:

http://www.philosopher.org/uploads/3/4/7/5/34753531/tips_for_starting_and_facilitating_a_socrates_caf.pdf

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/

elucidations podcast from university of chicago:

https://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/elucidations/

Philosophy Groups

There is some excellent advice about going about setting up and supporting your group on
the U3A home site here: https://www.u3a.org.uk/advice/supporting-your-members

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/

The Sophia project http://www.sophia-project.org/topical-arrangement.html

Oxford University podcasts https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/units

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/

A series of short (3-5 min) sounds bites greatest hits from hopwag: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/philosophy/research/hop-videos.aspx

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/

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

Bryan Magee the great philosophers (available in philosophy overdose site): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBHxLhKiPKxBBSWWqzH9g71mMx9s72XoN

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

https://philosophy247.org/

philosophy bites

https://philosophybites.com/

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

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