Brooklyn Public Philosophers is hosting a movie and discussion on Zootopia. Free popcorn.
Brooklyn Public Philosophers is hosting a movie and discussion on “Inside Out”. Free popcorn.
You probably know the Lucas Brothers from their Netflix comedy special On Drugs or their appearances in TV shows and movies like Lady Dynamite and 22 Jump Street. You might not know that they are serious students of philosophy. Join us on Wednesday, November 28th at 7:30 PM in the Strand Bookstore’s 2nd Floor Art Department as Kenny and Keith Lucas join Michael Brownstein (Associate Professor of Philosophy at John Jay College and author of The Implicit Mind) to discuss how philosophy shapes their comedy, how comedy works, the weirdly popular idea that comedians are today’s philosophers, and more.
The price of admission is a $5 gift certificate to the Strand. (You were probably going to spend $5 at the Strand some time soon, anyway.) Please purchase tickets here and share the Facebook event. I will take all the help I can get in spreading the word.
Stay tuned for more info about Kwame Anthony Appiah’s December 4th talk about identity at Philosophy in the Library!
Brooklyn Public Philosophers is hosting a movie and discussion on “Stalker”. Free popcorn.
We’re setting up a series of Ask a Philosopher booths at the Turnstyle Underground Market at Columbus Circle from January 7th to January 10th from 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM. It’s sort of the public-facing component of a big philosophy conference taking place in the city, so it’s a cool opportunity to talk with philosophers from all over the country.
How is the ancient exhortation to “know thyself” related to consolation, virtue, and the study of nature? How did the commitment to self-knowledge shift over the centuries in writings by Islamic, Jewish, Christian, and early modern natural philosophers? How did medieval women contribute to modern notions of self, self-knowledge, and knowledge of nature? This conference explores the meditative “reflective methodology” from its ancient roots, through medieval Christian, Muslim, and Jewish traditions to the so-called “new” methodologies of early modern science. Speakers include Souleymane Bachir Diagne, Pierre Force, Clémence Boulouque, Christia Mercer, and Pamela Smith.
Points of focus will be: (1) the relation between the ancient imperative to “know thyself” and medieval concerns to reflect on one’s self as a means to find ultimate truths; (2) the meditative genre as it developed from Augustine’s Confessions through Christian and Islamic spiritual exercises to late medieval Christian meditations and early modern kabbalist writings; (3) the continuity between medieval meditations and the reflective methodology of early modern science; and (4) the meditative genre’s afterlife in Freud, Foucault, Arendt, and contemporary science.
Conference co-sponsored by the Center for New Narratives in Philosophy, the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy, the Departments of Philosophy, French, English and Comparative Literature and the Maison Française
To download a PDF about this event click here.
When we’re asked to give examples of philosophical questions, we’re likely to think of questions that are very, very old. Is the physical world all there is? How should I live? How do we know what we know? But some philosophical problems are quite new, made possible or urgent by new developments in science and culture. These are often the most exciting problems to think through.
On March 7th at 7:30 PM, Derek Skillings joins Brooklyn Public Philosophers to share his work on the philosophical consequences of the fact that we are holobionts – biological units composed of hosts and their associated swarms of microorganisms. If you’re interested in health, the problem of personal identity, the philosophy of biology in general, or the philosophical consequences of the fact that we’re made up of a bunch of little things which are themselves alive in particular, you’ll want to check this one out. Here’s the abstract:
“I, holobiont. Are you and your microbes a community or a single entity?”
You are a holobiont – a biological unit made up of a host and its associated microbiome (bacteria, protists, viruses and other microscopic entities). What consequences does this have for how we understand ourselves and other similar organisms? What are our spatial and temporal boundaries, and what does it mean to be a healthy holobiont? In this talk I will look at some alternatives for making sense of both holobiont individuality and “healthy holobiont/microbiome” talk. I will argue that existing accounts of human health are not appropriate for microbiomes, and that notions of ecosystem health face similar shortcomings. I will end by looking at some possibilities for understanding overall host health given the importance and ubiquity of microbiomes.
As usual, we meet at the Dweck Center at the Grand Army Plaza branch of the Brooklyn Public Library. Here’s the Facebook event! Tell everyone, please!
In recent years, academic philosophers have increasingly pursued what is now called “public philosophy.” Almost everyone agrees that this development is positive. But what is public philosophy? What should it be? And why does it matter? Looking back to models both ancient and modern, this talk will be an exercise in public philosophy that explores the nature and value of public philosophy.
A reception will follow the lecture.
For information, contact: nyip.events@nyu.edu