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Lectures
start
promptly at 7:30PM and are held on the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays of each
month September 2023 through December 12, 2023. Our
meetings are held at the New New Chinese Buffet, 3822 Belt Line
Road, Addison, TX 75001 (972) 243-1198, Zoom access will NOT be available.
9-12-2023 Raised Religious?
Karl Meisenbach, B.A. Philosophy
Were you...Raised
Religious? What was/is the impact? Childhood years? Teen years? Senior
years? Let’s explore the basic philosophy of what it means to be “raised
religious” first as a child, then a teen, and off into adulthood. And if we
agree these are the philosophical fundamentals, we are using to develop child
and teen minds, what could possibly go wrong? What are the psychological
influences? Bring your childhood and teen years memories to think about
answering the question — Raised Religious?
9-26-2023 Second-Best Ethics
Mark Curtis-Thames, Ph.D.
Our current divisive
diversity is not successfully addressed by suppression of alternative views,
conversion of the other to one’s own view, banishing or barricading the other
from one’s world, or by transactional bargaining. Given that one’s own ethics is one’s
first-best ethics, what is needed is a second-best ethics. The speaker proposes “systemic ethics” as a
rational second-best ethics that makes sense of the diversity of ethical
theories, giving individuals and groups a unified toolkit and decision process,
which all involved can agree, while perhaps not optimal, are nevertheless at least
minimally ethical.
Click on the link to listen to the Zoom recording
Passcode: u3T%yTtd
10-10-2023 The Mist of Time: China's Earliest Philosohical Concepts
Bruce Jones, Independent Scholar
Our understanding of early
China comes from oral literature-- poetry and songs communicated over
hundreds of years and hundreds of miles and in many, many languages and
cultures. China’s earliest philosophical ideas apparently evolved out of
Taoism, Confucianism, and the Yin and Yang. Bruce Jones is credited with the
discovery of what is being called the Rosetta Stone of China’s bronze ritual
vessels. In this discussion he will
explore a time in China when legends and ideas took shape, guiding China’s
enormous culture for millennia. Jones hopes to bring a freshness to timeless
ideas which have survived for so long.
Click on the link to listen to the Zoom recording
10-24-2023 The Nature of Reality
Paul Tobolowsky, M.D.
Philosophers
through the ages have sought paths to an understanding of reality.
Current science suggests that reality is far different from the way we
perceive it. This talk examines how the ideas of philosophers from
prior eras stand up to the science of today. Our senses do not tell us
"the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." Let's look at
the worldview of prior philosophers in the light of current scientific
ideas about what our senses tell
us.
11-7-2023 Friedrich Schelling: Most Underrated Philosopher of the Nineteenth Century?
David Drumm, J.D. , Dallas Philosophers Forum Treasurer
In many histories of philosophy
Fredrick Schelling’s thought is considered merely a stepping-stone between
Fichte and Hegel. This is a gross injustice. Schelling’s productive career
outlasted Hegel’s by 20 years or so. The writings of the mature Schelling
interject a note of creativity and process into idealism and are an important
precursor to existentialism and other developments.
Click on the link to listen to the Zoom recording
https://ccsb.zoom.us/rec/share/n0MU3KJzF9i3vqHVvfPCr0gnHqkJcSFjsKmKKq7UuP-Jzvz-heKcIXrYcyyrRXtE.y0xtLHUQeCdDtXSqPasscode: ??3@rie@
11-28-2023
The Life, Times, and Philosophy of Baruch Spinoza
Rob Olson, MLA (Philosophy) Dallas Philosophers Forum President
Baruch Spinoza is considered one of
the foremost—and likely the most radical- thinkers of the Enlightenment.
Indeed, such revolutionary thinking led to his excommunication from his
synagogue. Of all the philosophers of the 17th century, Spinoza is among
the most relevant today
Click on the link to listen to the Zoom recording
Passcode: 8*5p*Bq7 12-12-2023 Ordering Goodness in the Universe of Possibilities
Andy Jennings, MS, MDiv., Ph.D.
William
Rowe’s Evidential Argument from Evil (EAE) claims that, very likely, there are
events in the actual world so horrendous and pointless that the world would be
better overall had some alternative occurred instead. What exactly does it
mean, though, for one set of circumstances to be better than another set of
circumstances? In other words, how can we assign truth to a statement like, “It
would have been better were x to happen/have happened than
were y to happen/have happened?” This lecture will argue that,
upon analyzing this type of comparative statement, Rowe did not achieve the
inductive strength he desired in his EAE.