Reflecting on Philosophy and more

Yesterday and if it's Thursday it's Ethics/Moral Philosophy.

The timing of the session from 12:15 to two fifteen is great for me - Tube travel is good and the mornings/lunchtime I don't feel like nodding off.

It was a  pretty good turnout and included some time in smaller group discussion (which I like) - as usual the challenge is to keep above the detail of our own particular experiences.


There are a few good things that come from investigation of topics that are outside my comfort zone and as Ariel said at the onset this isn't necessarily easy, he does (I think) pepper the classes with some other nuggets too - he said yesterday that we don't learn much at 12 years (or so)  school but we learn how to socialise - and this I though has some truth to it. 

Looking more closely

Something I'm getting from these sessions (perhaps sometimes almost troubling) is a focus on the moral dimension - choices we make - so often  have  (if we choose it to be so).

I'm reminded, rather strangely  after the sessions of  when I came out of seeing Duane Hanson's sculptures at The Serpentine - when I'd been there and got on the tube I was staring really intently at people and with this 'project'  I'm finding that I'm looking more closely at actions and with more curiousty.

We looked at Aristotle yesterday and I do consider is ethical stance seems eminently practical - his focus was on society rather than the individual (unlike the way we live now perhaps?)

Next week we're going to be  looking at Ayn Rand which I'm a little bit excited about - I've often heard mention of her but don't know why she's a controversial figure.

After class saw some lovely Hare Krishna's who invited me to a free (?) meal - vegetarian sorry to say I instead proceeded to a meaty snack.