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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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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Together, over 4 every-other-Wednesday sessions, we will closely read and discuss the contemporary import of essays from a variety of Jewish authors including Abraham Joshua Heschel, Leo Strauss, Daniel Delgado, James Hatley, and others. Sessions will be discussion-based, facilitated by Kaleb Cohen and Mitchell Conway, with one guest facilitator joining along the way.

Some core questions that we’ll explore:

— How might Hebraic ideas inform philosophy? Are they philosophical or solely religious ideas? Can those ideas have any meaning outside of their cultural context?
— What role might the Jewish notion of exile hold for an environmental ethic?
— In Montana, how ought we respond to a history of violence against buffalo and Indigenous peoples and what could Jewish traditions teach us about these responses?
— What is the meaning of rest in an age of industrialization and unrelenting resource extraction?

While each session will be self-contained (such that you can attend a stand-alone session and still benefit), participating in as many sessions as possible will allow more time to make and experience larger connections between readings, ideas, and questions explored.

FREE & open to the public. Donations appreciated. Learn more, check out what we’ll be reading here (seats limited!): https://merlinccc.org/event/reading-discussion-series-environment-jewish/

RSVP here: https://mailchi.mp/merlinccc/jewish-environmental-wisdom

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Is democracy new or old? Does it deserve the reverence that modern Western society has ascribed to it? How did we get to where it is the form of government par excellence?

In this evening’s program led by Professor of Political Science Stephen Forrest, we’ll look at the evolution of the modern concept of democracy. We’ll explore how a bunch of borderline outlaws in three different countries addressed the fundamental stumbling blocks that held back the ancient world from embracing democracy as a form of government.

In doing so, we’ll trace the strands of democracy from early modern times to the present, including how different groups approached practical matters. We will trace their solutions to the present day and see how those solutions continue to shape the discourse of the modern world. We’ll reflect on the current challenges to “democracy.” We’ll also address how members of the community can put theory into practice and keep democracy healthy.

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How does the kind of society that we live in shape our character, values, and attitudes as individuals? Is it even possible to be a healthy person, in a society that’s profoundingly sick and unbalanced?

Over the winter and early spring, we’ll be exploring these and other main themes from Plato’s Republic. For 5 every-other-Wednesday sessions, we’ll balance our time and attention between close reading of Plato’s text, and considering the implications of Plato’s arguments for our own lives and times.

While each session will be somewhat self-contained (such that you can attend a stand-alone session at still benefit), we’ll also try to see the tightly woven structure of Plato’s dialogue as a whole, how all the parts come together in a deeply interconnected argument that moves freely between diverse registers, including: observations from daily life and history, creative and lively thought-experiments, meticulous arguments from first principles, and epic poetry and myth. Participating in as many sessions as possible will allow more time to make and experience these larger connections.

Roughly, the main themes for each week, as we step through the text together, will include:

— The Ring of Invisibility, and the Burning Fever of Greed

— A Mythic Education: Poetry and Character

— Seeing and Knowing: The Allegories of the Line and the Cave

— What’s Wrong with Democracy?

— Choosing our Lives: Vindicating Justice

Any translation of Plato’s dialogue will be appropriate, and it might even be helpful if, as a group, we can compare several of them. If you don’t already have a copy, we highly recommend the version for G.M.A. Grube, revised by C.D.C. Reeve (Hackett Publishing), available very cheaply in paperback.

So, come from the torchlit relay race on horseback, stay for the ring of invisibility, and the deep lessons about how, and why, we can cultivate our own character.

5 sessions, every other Wednesday (Feb. 28th – Apr. 24th) in the Reeder’s Alley Conference Center. FREE (donations always appreciated). Learn more & RSVP here: https://merlinccc.org/event/philosophy-merlin-shorts-exploring-the-republic-2/

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For the first part of our gathering, we’ll explore diverse ways of perceiving our worldly existence through a series of slides, images, quotes, sound bites, and narrative. The featured paradigms (perceptual models) will be laden with both scientific and emotional considerations, to prompt philosophical reflection.

After observing a sequence of these shifting paradigms & examining why and how intelligent aliens might seek to intervene in human affairs, we’ll dive into a fun conversation sparked by the group’s collective imagination.

Lights snacks provided. BYOB. 6:30pm-8:30pm in the Reeder’s Alley Conference Center. FREE (donations always appreciated). Learn more & RSVP here: https://merlinccc.org/event/philosophy-talk-paradigms-earth/

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In this evening’s program, we’ll explore some of the ways that the concept of “religion” has evolved and radically changed over time, along with the related concepts of spirituality and atheism.  And we’ll consider some of the social, political, and historical factors which have spurred changes in dominant and popular notions of religion, without necessarily reducing the domain of religion to merely those other factors.

In the course of our survey, we’ll meet a wide range of thinkers spanning more than two millennia, and spread across five continents. Some of these thinkers are highly innovative and original, setting a course for future generations, while others give especially clear expression to dominant or widely-held views of particular places, times, and cultures.

As we consider the contributions of these and other individuals and communities, we’ll find ourselves returning to a variety of conceptual and theoretic issues, on which our various thinkers will take radically different positions:

— Is religion more of a private matter, which mostly belongs to individuals, families, or freely-chosen affinity groups, or it is primarily more public, belonging to ethnic groups, tribes, states, or whole civilizations?

— Are religions most properly local or particular, such that we’d naturally expect a wide diversity of religions across the wide diversity of humanity, or are they (or should they be) universal in their scope, applicability, and/or authority?

— What are the most natural responses, to noticing that your neighbors, or various foreigners, have different Gods, different religious beliefs and practices from your own?

— Where are the boundaries between religion and spirituality, or between religion and superstition? And where is atheism, amidst this tangle of concepts?

— What is the relationship between religions and human cultures?

(As always, free and open to all.  Handout and suggestions for further ready and study will be provided.). 6:30pm-7:45pm in the Reeder’s Alley Conference Center.  Learn more & RSVP here: https://merlinccc.org/event/philosophy-merlin-shorts-how-did-we-get-here-religion-january-2024/

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Our film & community conversation will be held on Thursday, November 2nd from 6pm-8:30pm in Reeder’s Alley Convention Center and facilitated by community philosopher David Nowakowski. FREE and open to all members of the community. Space is limited.

Water & hot tea provided. Bring a low-profile comfy lawn camping chair if you’d like.  We’ll also have regular fold-out chairs available.

Learn more, watch the film trailer & RSVP on our website event page: https://merlinccc.org/event/philosophy-symposia-series-loss-legacy-2023-6/

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