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The Spike [: or, Victoria University College Review 1957]

Philosophical Society

page 93

Philosophical Society

The Philosophical Society held its inaugural meeting in July, 1947. Various meetings were held in this and the next few years, at which topics of philosophic interest were discussed. Unfortunately, interest in the society waned and meetings ceased after about three years' activities.

In 1951 the Philosophy and Psychology departments were separated, a new chair of Philosophy being created. With the new department fully staffed and with many more students than previously reading philosophy for their degrees, a tremendous impetus was given to the study of philosophy at the College. New life was instilled into the society, both staff and students participating in the discussions at meetings which were held regularly. Membership grew quickly to about the 40 level and has remained fairly constant since. Although we have always welcomed members from outside the College we have rarely had more than three or four, but we hope that this number will be increased in the future by present-day members who complete their courses at the College and continue their contacts with the society.

Most of the meetings take the form of lectures, symposiums and panel discussions. Lecturers from outside the College who have addressed us are Prof. A. N. Prior (C.U.C.), Captain Moncrieff (Nelson), Prof. G. Ryle (Oxford), Fr. G. H. Duggan (Wellington), Prof. John Anderson (U.S.A.) and Mr. M. Shorter (C.U.C). We have in addition to discussing technical problems in philosophy tried to find common ground with other faculties and so have often held panel discussions on topics which might appear on the surface to be far removed from the realms of philosophy. Our aim has necessarily been broad and the following list gives some ideas of the subjects which have been tackled: "Natural Law"; "The Mind-Body Relationship"; "God and Philosophy"; "Faith and Reason"; "Language and the World"; "Prison Reform"; "Deontic Logic"; "Political Order and the Ideas of Mankind"; "Must We be Ourselves?"; "Meaning and Grammar"; "Intuitions and the Obvious"; "The Present Impasse of Western Philosophy."

Also in 1955 a joint effort by the Maths and Physics Society and this Society resulted in the holding of six lunch-hour discussions on inter-faculty topics. These meetings were well attended, the lecture rooms being packed on each occasion.

This year we are proposing an extension of our activities. In addition to the usual meetings we are holding a series of discussions based on the seminar model, to consider various developments in modern philosophy. They will be introduced by five-minute talks by some member of the society on a topic extracted from some recent collection of papers. In order to attract as many members as possible, parallel groups are to be run, one at the College during the lunch hour and the other at a private home during the evening.