WHAT WE’LL EXLORE
The virtue of friendship was highly valued in ancient Greek philosophy, from the early Pythagorean fellowships, through nearly every major philosophical school and tradition, down to the final synthesis of these various schools in the Athenian Academy, more than 1,000 years after Pythagoras. In between, Aristotle devotes two out of the ten books of his Nicomachean Ethics entirely to the topic of friendship — far more space than he gives to any of the other virtues.

In this evening’s program, we’ll explore some of the core concepts in Aristotle’s account of friendship. We’ll consider the various goals toward which friendship might be directed, the need for true friends to be of good ethical character, and the conditions under which friendship can flourish.

Finally, we’ll follow Aristotle in asking whether friendship can arise only among equals, or whether it’s possible for people of very different status to be friends as well. Can a parent truly be a friend to her child, a teacher to his students, or a ruler to her subjects? Rather than a mere all-or-nothing account, we’ll be able to consider the question in terms of what it would take for genuine friendship to exist amidst such disparities of power, authority, or other human differences.

And throughout all these themes, we’ll be building a robust picture of what it takes to become, and to remain, a true friend.

WORKSHOP DISCUSSION STRUCTURE
Our discussion will be centered around some short extracts from Aristotle’s writings on friendship in Books VIII and IX of the Nicomachean Ethics, which we’ll read aloud together during the session. These should, in turn, provide the springboard for robust reflection, critique, and self-examination as we examine Aristotle’s arguments and their applicability to our own lives.

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Highlighting the immense amount of talent in and around Montana, Ho-Ho-Holter offers patrons an opportunity to collect, and purchase handmade work for their private collection or as gifts this holiday season.

This sale spans the Holter Store and fills three galleries with artwork from over 40 local and regional artists and craftspeople, inviting the community to come enjoy, celebrate, give, and collect from artists!

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Today, the opportunity to make the ancient art form of mime accessible to a contemporary audience drives his professional artistry. Bowers is a mime who also talks, deftly interspersing narrative with stunning visual portraits. He marries classical aspects with contemporary sound effects and music, poses present-day considerations through physical tapestries, and invites a wholly transformative look at the humor, pain and beauty of our humanity through simplicity and grace.

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From 11:00 am-7:00 PM on Saturday, November 2 Good Samaritan Ministries will host a full schedule of daytime events onsite at our store location – 3067 Montana Avenue parking lot!

Food trucks, fashion show, children’s activity tent, in-store sales, amazing silent auction packages, Helena Library clothing drive and a stage with local government, community and unsheltered speakers, Open Mic presentations, music and theatre will help us celebrate Good Samaritan Ministries accomplishments and ongoing programs while raising money and understanding of the ongoing challenges of the unsheltered in our community.

OUR CHALLENGE: From 7:00 PM until 7:00 AM November 3, twelve (12) women will remain on our property overnight to highlight the challenges of our female unsheltered neighbors. They pledge to stay twelve (12) hours, and each seeks ten (10) sponsors.

COMMUNITY OPEN INVITATION:
 Come join the activities during the day…
 We are seeking sponsors to help us achieve our goals for Ruth’s Place!
 Pledge a donation for the volunteers choosing to answer the question – What’s it like for a female to live unsheltered in our community?

TOGETHER WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

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Recognizing the rising number of breast cancer diagnoses, Boobiecon is asking all of Helena to support breast cancer survivors and thrivers, past, present and future. Please help us share the signs to watch for, recognizing that early detection is the best defense.

Boobiecon is happy to partner with Pack the Place in Pink. This nonprofit gives breast cancer patients a “hug” in the form of financial support. Gifts are given with no strings attached to allow the person fighting breast cancer to spend the money how ever they choose.

Patients use the money to cover travel expenses, lost wages, help with housecleaning, anything that they choose. This is an organization that is making a difference in the lives of breast cancer patients in Montana. Running strictly on volunteer power, 95 cents of every dollar is given away. The more money they raise, the more they can give away.

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Then, the story goes, everything changed, as the Scientific Revolution cast out all these intermediary spirits, leaving a cosmos that resembles a collection of inanimate machines, rather than an ecology teeming with living agents: a process which the pioneering sociologist Max Weber famously termed “the disenchantment of the world.”

And yet.

Even within Europe and its diaspora, large numbers of people still believe in — and interact with — angels, demons, and other ghosts and spirits. And this doesn’t have to be a “religious thing” — as indeed, for most of European history, it was not a religious thing. Just consider the popularity of “ghost hunting,” or how many of us name our automobiles, and talk to them to encourage them in challenging conditions. Maybe the Revolution was not quite so total as we’ve been told, and some vestiges of these spirits live on amidst the mechanized cosmos: ghosts in the machine, as it were.

In this evening’s program, we’ll consider this process of disenchantment within its historical context, and its consequences for ourselves and our modern Western worldview. We’ll examine the older, pre-Revolutionary world-picture, which historian C.S. Lewis has famously termed “the discarded image,” as it appears in history, literature, and the “natural philosophy” that would be supplanted by the modern physical sciences. We’ll consider the context in which the intellectual battles of the Scientific Revolution were fought, including the political and theological polemics of the Protestant Reformation and its aftermath, as well as the craze for witch-burnings that swept Europe and the Americas during this period. And we’ll observe some of the impacts of the disenchanted, mechanistic worldview in the development of the new social sciences, especially sociology and anthropology.

Finally, we’ll reflect on the consequences of the mechanistic worldview, however fully or partially it has been adopted: What has all of this done, to the ways that we’re able to interact with the wider world and its inhabitants? What has it done to our own self-understanding, both as individuals and as societies? And what does it mean, that the ghosts in the machine seem to live on, however awkwardly and uncomfortably, in everyday life and discourse?

(As always, free and open to all.)

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