USUPhilosophy

WEDNESDAY, 24 SEPT, 4:30 – 5:20 PM, OLD MAIN 201
Club member Jeremiah Graves will be presenting on Haitian Voodoo. Topics include facts and fiction in the practice of Voodoo as well as, according to Jeremiah “self-defense against bullies.” (Sponsored by Religious Studies Club)

THURSDAY, 25 SEPT, 4:00 – 5:00 PM, ENGR 108
A debate will be held between Dr. Harrison Kleiner (representing the atheist position) and Dr. Charlie Huenemann (representing the theist position). They will be debating the rationality of religious belief. (Sponsored by S.H.A.F.T.)

… is here. One of the interesting articles is whether someone should be compensated by an institution if that institution makes them evil. For example, suppose someone is turned into a racist as a result of their training and work as a police officer. Have they been harmed in such a way as to be paid damages? Read more here.

Philosophy Club and Phi Sigma Tau met last week to brainstorm over events for the coming year. There was a lot of support for some informal get-togethers, with the aim of providing a time and place for finding other people interested in talking philosophy. (We’re calling them “Socrates Cafés,” following a sizeable national trend, but I think we should come up with our own name for them: “Cave Chats,” perhaps?)

So the first one will be at The Factory pizzeria, below the old Gia’s on Main Street, south of 100 S: Thursday, October 2nd, 7 pm. All are welcome! (I won’t be able to make this one, so if you go, just keep your eyes open for philosophy junkies in need of a fix.)

Ball State University has started a new undergraduate journal of philosophy called Stance. If you are working on a paper this term, or have one from a previous semester that you think others should see, you should consider submitting it. I have put their call for papers over here, on the “Undergraduate Philosophy Conferences” page. Stance‘s own website is here.

Or, if you don’t feel quite ready to submit anything, Stance is also looking for external referees. This would mean receiving one or two submissions to the journal, reading through them, and offering your judgment upon their quality and whether they ought to be published. Contact Huenemann if you think you might be interested in doing this.

Here is a short but provocative article on TS Eliot and the relationship between religion and humanism.

While I am sure my friends in SHAFT will disagree, I don’t think humanism can survive without religion.  But what is interesting here is Eliot’s claim that religion cannot survive without humanism.  

(On the first claim, of course in order to decide what humanism needs we first need an adequate anthropology – that is, we need to know what a human is.  The folks over at SHAFT are probably all materialists, so we already don’t agree there.  I want a humanism that is worthy of the human person as a whole).

For those interested in reading more on religious humanism, I would direct you to John Paul the Great (JPII).  His personalism is a fine example of authentic humanism, and it is philosophically informed (you may recall that JPII first ‘job’ was as a philosophy professor).