This month’s featured website is Philosophy for All. The name says it all. Their interest is getting everyone interested in philosophy (an aim I share!). They do not care how old you are, what your background is or whether you’ve had any philosophical education; if you are interested in philosophy (and have £15 to spare for the annual membership charge) they are interested in you!
Anja Steinbauer
PFA’s President and ‘founding mother’ is Anja Steinbauer. Anja is a co-editor of Philosophy Now (last month’s featured website), and co-initiated the UK’s only ‘Access to Philosophy’ programme. You can see her website here.
PFA have lots of philosophical activities. The one I’d love to try is a philosophical walk. No lectures or structured discussion, just a gentle walk through lovely scenery, with other people who are interested in philosophy. Just my sort of thing.
PFA Philosophy Walk
They also do monthly lectures (in the delightfully named ‘Kant’s Cave’), Saturday afternoon lectures (jointly with the Bishopsgate Institute) and a monthly film club held in a pub (where they show films likely to stimulate philosophical debate, no doubt helped along by a beer or two). There is also a monthly ‘salon’ to bring philosophers together with thinkers of other disciplines.
Bishopsgate Institute
I think anything that brings philosophy to the multitude is a Very Good Thing, and urge you to have a look at PFA’s website and consider joining them.
One of the best walks in Kyoto is the Tetsugaku-no-michi (哲学の道) or Path of Philosophy that runs from Kinkakuji temple to Eikan-do temple (or vice-versa). It’s a lovely walk and is so named because the philosopher Nishida Kitaro (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nishida-kitaro/) used to walk the path lost in his own thoughts.
There seems to be quite a strong connection between walking and thinking.
Philosophers’ Walks are a German thing too, although the one in Heidelberg is apparently not so named for purely intellectual reasons:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophenweg_(Heidelberg)
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophenweg
Many thanks for promoting Philosophy for All, Marianne. (I am one of the organizers.) We also have a Meetup group:
Philosophy For All London
London, GB
2,004 Philosophers
Next Meetup
FILM CLUB: The Devil’s Advocate (Taylor Hackford, 1997)
Wednesday, Oct 15, 2014, 7:00 PM
32 Attending
Check out this Meetup Group →
and I would recommend the use of Meetup to anyone who wants to start a philosophy group.
Hi Richard,
I am happy to promote Philosophy for All, think it is a brilliant organisation. I’ll put your meet up on my FB page (Marianne Talbot Philosophy), and my twitter feed (@oxphil_marianne)
Marianne