Philosophy Moves From Ivory Tower To Neighborhood Hangouts

[Guest guest]

Namaste,

 

Today's Washington Post has an interesting article on

the new demand for organized and unorganized

philosophical lectures in Washington and other major

cities of the world.

 

" ............ Here's what's wild: Philosophy is hot

nowadays, hot as, say, Ricky Martin in pleather. When

a couple of folks decided to hold a lecture series

called "Philosophy on Tap" in the bar Brickskeller,

they thought they'd get 40 or 50 people willing to pay

$195. They got 150.

 

The phenomenon is not limited to Washington. In

France, they've known for nearly a decade that

philosophers go well with coffee, which is why they

started philosophy cafes, a phenomenon that has more

recently spread to the United States. Applied

philosophy courses are big on college campuses now.

There has even been interest in philosophy as therapy,

a point of view championed in the 1999 bestseller

"Plato Not Prozac!"

 

It's enough to set your head spinning. Philosophy . .

.. relevant? Since when does philosophy have any place

in our modern lives? Why, many of us haven't thought

about philosophy since we scrawled " 'God is dead.' --

Nietzsche" in our high school yearbooks.

 

Still, if you climbed to the top floor of the

Brickskeller on Tuesday night and peeked through a

crack in the door, you'd see an awful lot of people

captivated by a clean-cut guy in a pink dress shirt

standing in front of a huge Bass Ale sign. This is V.

Bradley Lewis, an assistant professor of

philosophy at Catholic University and one of two

lecturers hosting this course. He is speaking into a

microphone and gesticulating with his right

arm. It goes up. And down. And up. And down. And the

people are sipping their beers and occasionally

laughing! As if this is cabaret! And if you

listened between the laughter, you'd hear: "Kant . .

.. Hume . . . Hobbes . . . Numina . . . Me in myself .

.. . When we think about ourselves we can't know

ourselves as the thing that is us . . . "

 

The complete article is available at today's

Washington Post in the print and electronic editions.

 

warmest regards,

 

Ram Chandran

 

Source Washington Post Style Section Article:

Nietzsche With a Chaserz: Philosophy Moves From Ivory

Tower To Neighborhood Hangouts By Libby Copeland

Washington Post Staff Writer

Thursday, August 2, 2001; Page C01

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19655-2001Aug1.html

[Guest guest]

Namaste,

 

The last paragraph of the said article says it all, though!

 

"

But Roy says one thing that's even more troubling: Very few of his

fellow cafe philosophers actually change their minds because

of the debates. "They really stick to what they believed originally

and they try to maintain their point," he says.

 

That is why you ask Lewis the last big question of the night: What's

the point of philosophy if -- after all the broadening of

horizons and all the questioning of assumptions -- we wind up right

back where we started, believing the same things we've

always believed?

 

And Bradley Lewis responds: You can't blame philosophy for that.

That's the province of human psychology."

 

The practical philosophy that has to be 'lived', emulating the

teacher, is sadly missing!

 

 

Regards,

 

s.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

advaitin, Ram Chandran <ramvchandran> wrote:

> Namaste,

>

> Today's Washington Post has an interesting article on

> the new demand for organized and unorganized

> philosophical lectures in Washington and other major

> cities of the world.