Statue of Plato (detail) by Leonidas Drosis at the Academy of Athens.

 

Philosophy

The word philosophy comes from the Greek meaning ‘love of knowledge’. What can we know and most importantly how can we know it? How can we know what is the Good? How can we know what is Truth?

P&D u3a Philosophy Group is led by Ian Gregory with highly convivial sessions of intellectual stimulation held at his home in Barmby Moor.  Ian says that a crucial task is to lay bare the presuppositions at the heart of some of our most fundamental ideas and practices. Concepts such as Justice, Equality, Freedom, the Rule of Law, Citizenship and Democracy are some of the most important subjects for critical dialogue.

Socrates was one of the most famous early philosophers who pursued intellectual enquiry in Athens as early as the mid 400’s BC. He taught Plato (a teacher of Mathematics and Philosophy) and he in turn taught Aristotle. Can you believe that these people were seeking Truth and how to know it all those years ago?

One of Plato’s works was called the Republic where he tried to work out the ideal State and who would be best placed to govern. He was an idealist with an interest in practical politics but he became disillusioned with the government of the day. He wrote of a trained Philosopher King to rule but to modern minds that would seem too authoritarian for a democracy. Plato founded the Academy which could be regarded as the world’s first university.

There are many branches of philosophy. Ethics is the philosophical study of the morality of human conduct and the rules and principles which should guide it. Here we are today 2,500 years later still exploring the same kind of problems that so excited those early philosophers. In his recent sessions Ian says he has been engaged in what can usefully be described as Applied Ethics looking at issues very much to the fore in our current social and political lives – Just War theory, the Right to Protest, the Rule of Law, Assisted Dying, Abortion, the Environment, the vexed issues around Sex and Gender and the concept and practice of Democracy are all matters of moral concern which lend themselves to philosophical reflection of the most exciting and challenging kind.

Human beings have evolved over the centuries and acquired more scientific and technological knowledge but have we acquired any more wisdom? Who seeks it today?