To celebrate the new year, we kicked off our 2021 workshop series by going back to the beginning.  What is philosophy?  What does it involve, what does it do, and why should we care?

For this first of four workshops in the series, we began with the basics.  Our discussion started with some traditional definitions of philosophy that were popular in Alexandria in the 6^th century CE, and then move forward and backward in time, and across continents in space.  Alexandria was a great center of learning: a place where for centuries, pagans, Christians, and travelers from all over the world came together to study and share their knowledge.  By the 6^th century, scholars could look back over more than 1,000 years of Greek philosophy, taking stock of a rich and diverse intellectual legacy. 

Based on their final synthesis, we surveyed several approaches to the question, “What is philosophy?”, each of which raised its own further questions for reflection and discussion:

• Philosophy is a way of life, with living, embodied practices that can in some way improve, complete, or fulfill our lives. How can the study, and the practice, of philosophy change our lives for the better?
• Philosophy is preparation for death, through self-knowledge and understanding of our world. How does the practice of philosophy help us to face life, and death, with strength and courage?
• Philosophy is cosmogony: a deliberate act of creating the world in which we live—crafting it, shaping it, and bringing our world into being at every moment. How can the philosophical act shape both our own private worlds, and the wider world that we share in common?
• Philosophy is the art of arts, and the science of sciences, occupying a special place with respect to all other creative and intellectual endeavors (which is why top chemists, historians, economists, and physicists all have “Ph.D.”—“Doctor of Philosophy”—after their names). What special perspective does philosophy bring, which can support or enrich all these areas of human life and culture?

We also took a quick tour of the major areas or divisions of philosophy, as they developed in Greece, India, and elsewhere.

Additional Resource Provided by Workshop Participant 

“The Well-Ordered Heart: Confucius on Harmony, Music, and Ritual”

(Jensen Armstrong Kirkendall, Azusa Pacific University, December 14 201)

**Thank you, James, for sharing this resource with us!**

Thank you to Humanities Montana and P.L.A.T.O. (Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization) for helping support our philosophy in the community programs and making events like this possible!  This workshop was part of our “Thinking as a Community” project.