Picture of PhIG 7.5

I'm going to try to upload a photo of the supernumerary session we had after CHiPS V.

Seems the best I can do is put a link to it, so it will have to wait till I'm in the office. Here it is: http://www.cavehill.uwi.edu/fhe/histphil/Philosophy/CHiPS/2009/chipsvphig.jpg

PhIG 7 - November 7

Good day colleagues:

There is an argument which holds that nothing can have a mental experience without a physical property. Given this view....then:

1. What is consciousness?
2. Where is consciousness located? Is it in the mind , it is something out there or can it be created using by physical objects, like in the case of artificial intelligence?
3. Do Human beings exhibit higher levels of consciousness than animals /creatures?
4. Can consciousness exist in an unconsciousness state?

Let us explore our 'conscious' experiences at Weiser's Beach Bar on November 7, 2009 @ 4pm. If you cannot attend, be sure to forward your views via email.

Warm Regards,
Felicia

PhIG 6

Our September meeting was focused on the implications of a new Afghan law that legislated punishment for women who did not meet the sexual needs of their husbands. As the discussion evolved, we examined the nature of marriage and the concept of human rights. Also mentioned (as we were wrapping up our evening) was the value of religion. Margaret then suggested religion as a possible topic for our upcoming meeting, which is a natural progression from our last meeting.

So for October 3, we will consider the role and value of religion in the human experience. Some questions that we can aim to answer include:
Is it a natural human need to believe in supernatural entity (entities)?
Does religion add value to our lives at both the individual and the societal level?
Should religion be used a basis for developing laws?
Does religion affect the development a set of universal human rights? If yes, is this effect negative or positive?

If there are other questions related to this topic that you would like us to consider when we meet, send an email to the group.

As usual, we meet at Weisers at 4:00 on Saturday, October 3.

All the best
--
Roxanne

PhIG September 5th

A brief reminder of the upcoming PHIG as well as a call for possible topics to be discussed at the next meeting. I have been mulling over various societal issues in order to make a proposition. What has registered for me over the past weeks though is issues regarding gender, marriage and rights, emanating from the law (recently amended) in Afghanistan which allows husbands the right to starve their wives if they do not comply with their reasonable sexual demands. Afghan women, at least at the political and/or judicial level appear to be opposed to this, but the law has been passed in an amended version to hopefully garner the Shiite vote.

I dont think we philosophised about issues of gender/marriage/rights etc, i could be mistaken, but I am hoping to come up with a more precise recommendation soon. For now though, emotions aside, if possible, it would be useful to have your thoughts on this. The "West" is usually scolded for its judgement of "non-Western" societies and their mores and norms, but I am not sure that an issue like this can be simplistically reduced to West/non-Western characterizations. Dont humans (women) have rights as human beings to be treated as such. I know that in reality politics will exist but lets start somewhere.

Nicole

PhIG 3

The next PhIG will be on July 4th, 4p.m. at Weiser's. We won't be
celebrating anything much though, since the topic we've hit upon,
influenced in part by something Margaret told us last time, is to do
with the doubtful value of our present power to keep people alive.

A brief remark from a review might give you an idea: "It is certainly
possible that our modern ability to have a longer old age detracts
from our lives rather than adding to them,
and this should be given its share of attention if we are planning to
evaluate old age at all." (If you want to see the whole review, go
here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=16128.)

If we are sympathetic to the view that someone simply wouldn't want to
be kept alive in some fashion, and so endorse turning off their
life-support system, what does this do to our views on more active
forms of euthanasia? There have recently been a number of
well-publicised cases in the UK relating to such questions, without so
far producing any changes in the law, as far as I am aware. There is
obviously another connection with our previous topic of pleasure, in
that the quote speaks of what in general gives or takes away value
from our lives. We may not have agreed that it was pure and simply
pleasure last time, but it is perhaps difficult to think that
vegetative survival gives anyone enough to make their life worth
having.

Yours
Ed Brandon

article on happiness

Hi

After our meeting I came across a very interesting article on a long-lasting longitudinal study (of a couple of hundred Harvard undergraduates - including JFK) that started in the '40s. Relates to the happiness stuff by Seligman: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/print/200906/happiness.

Ed

Pleasure

If any of you would like to get an orientation to pleasure, beyond
what Roxanne has provided in the Philosophy of Sex and Love course, by
the sound of the discussion, I found a few things that might be of
interest.

Easiest because it is an audio file is this audio-talk (about 15
minutes) by Hurka: http://cdn2.libsyn.com/philosophybites/Thomas_Hurka_on_Pleasure.MP3?nvb=20090418105025&nva=20090419110025&t=00bfb25f8b633dccad804

Some of you may recall Kim Setton - he has attended a couple of CHIPS,
our man in Confucian studies. He also runs a website:
http://pursuit-of-happiness.org/default.aspx

For the industrious, there is an exhaustive survey, invoking a good
deal of psychological work, in SEP:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pleasure

I'd be glad of Roxanne's ideas. Beyond that, I shall simply
contemplate the next few bottles of wine.

Ed

Second Meeting

Hi

For two major reasons (Felicia's point about choosing a day near pay day, and the fact that Fred will be leaving the island mid-June) we are proposing to shift the day for PhIG to the FIRST Saturday of the month. That means that we will try to meet again on JUNE 6th - and hope to cash in on the interest shown at the first session. We hope that is not too soon for you; thereafter we will meet just once a month.

At the last meeting the topic suggested for next time was pleasure. We'll post a few thoughts about that very soon.

Yours
Ed Brandon

first thoughts on Fisher?

Quite unfortunately I prematurely left the theatre lastnight ignorant of the fact that the Fisher film was the second, and not the first film! Anyways, for those of you who actually got to watch, any initial thoughts before tomorrow's session?

By way of on-line background for the first topic

Makinde has a book (African Philosophy, Culture, and Traditional
Medicine — 1988, Ohio UP) about the topic but I can't find it on the
web. (It is in Questia but you have to subscribe to that.)

There is a very brief discussion of it by Hallden here, pages 43/44:
http://books.google.com/books?id=p2yZveBQhqAC&pg=PA43&dq=Makinde&ei=oaMSSuacBojQkAT2rqjiCQ#PPA43,M1

Hallden says a lot of it is about divination. There is most of the
chapter on Yoruba divination in the Companion to African Philosophy at
Google books too:
http://books.google.com/books?id=xIVS1hUrknwC&pg=PA22&dq=Taiwo+ifa&ei=46USSrT0Jo3wkQTjnaWZBw#PPA23,M1
- Google books is a pain - you have to go to the ToC and click on
chapter 22 to reach it.

PBS has this discussion:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/altmed/clash/philosophy.html.

A brief guide to Chinese medicine:
http://www.traditionalmedicine.net.au/chinsynd.htm.

Brief blog contribution on Chinese stuff:
http://hcssh.blogspot.com/2008/10/philosophy-in-traditional-chinese.html.

Skeptical Inquirer online articles are here:
http://www.csicop.org/si/online.html.

First meeting

Dear All:

Further to our circular about getting together informally to talk philosophy, we are proposing to meet on Saturday, May 23rd, at 4 p.m. at Weiser's (along Spring Garden Highway, on the beach).

Before then, Anthony Fisher is launching his recent documentary film, "Day of the Sangoma", on Thursday, May 21, at 7:30 pm at the Errol Barrow Center for Creative Imagination, at the Cave Hill Campus of the UWI (admission is free to all). It is about the role of traditional medicine in the context of South Africa's HIV-AIDS epidemic. We thought that it might provide a spring-board into questions about traditional medical practices generally - do they count as some sort of knowledge? If so, how should one deal with their variety? etc. etc. We are hoping Dr Fisher will be able to join us for the discussion, but we certainly don't intend it to be restricted to people who have seen the film.

We sent this and the previous message to a large number of people. If you are interested in remaining in touch with this project, please reply if you haven't already - even if you won't be coming on the 23rd. Ideas for topics for future meetings are always welcome.

Welcome!

Dear All:

Welcome to Philosophy in Action! We hope this blog will promote fruitful interaction amongst us all, and a serve as a base for more extended dialogue on the topics offered for discussion.

Happy blogging!
Nicole