Somewhere almost in the middle of the Eurasian continent, on the wuthering planes of Central Kazakhstan, in Astana, our university arose just 13 years ago as an attempt to provide world-class education, attracting professionals across the world. All the courses are taught in English, making the general community at least trilingual: Kazakh, Russian, and English.
In this respect, one of our former Philosophy professors, Christopher Noonan, confessed he is proficient only in English and expressed his admiration for people successfully studying philosophy in a language foreign to them because the complexity of a philosophical text goes far beyond grammar and vocabulary. It is sometimes difficult to grasp or communicate all the span of a philosophical idea while reading or writing about it even when doing so in your mother tongue.
Our club avoided the COVID-19 crisis by commencing after in-person classes had been restored in Spring 2023, when Dr. Jim Hutchinson (our mentor, and the very embodiment of a living mind, in my opinion) first proposed to conduct discussions where every student was welcome to participate. Several initial meetings took place in which different topics were discussed in a friendly and engaging manner. These meetings were gathering on average 10 to 20 students. On one occasion, it was suggested to bring these meetings to a higher qualitative level of existence by establishing them as a club. Two volunteers raised their hands, Azamat Dybyssov (majoring in World Languages, Literatures and Cultures), the current president of the club, and Adiya Yessengali (majoring in Sociology), the current vice-president. And thus, the official story of our Philosophy Club Vox began. If you wonder about the reason for choosing this name, the answer is: “It sounded cool and in Latin.”
The birth of the club was packed with activities: regular meetings with professors, discussions, and participation in a charity fair. Also, since its beginning, Tealosophy has become one of the marks of our club, held once a semester. Here, students and professors meet in an informal atmosphere to drink tea (or coffee, we are quite inclusive) and eat pizza. Upon writing this article it was found out that there is another Tealosophy mentioned on the Internet, but the greatest difference is the fact that we prioritize the second part (coming from Philosophy), over the first.
It is worth mentioning that there is no Philosophy major at our university and, so far, only a minor in Philosophy and Religions is available. Therefore, our club unites people with sometimes surprising backgrounds: from petroleum and chemical engineering to world language and literature. This ipso facto creates a unique atmosphere of openness and multidimensionality, where everyone feels similarly entitled to share their ideas, and people are connected by the common love of philosophy and a strive to find the truth.
Fall 2023 brought new members to the club and new events: open discussion, student-led lecture discussions, mentor meetings, and creating a podcast Plato’s Plov (the first episode is already on YouTube, and the next one is already scheduled).
Open discussions never fail to attract several new people who are eager to share their thoughts concerning varied topics: from the objectivity of ethics to current news in a philosophical context. Some of them later apply to become official members of our club, but everyone is welcome even if they only wish to attend one session. Usually, open discussions are engaging but quite chaotic, playing the role of a “primordial soup” from which some interesting “life” in the form of ideas can emerge to be eventually discussed more in-depth.
Student-led discussions were pioneered by our current Head of the Media department Yerik Zhanseiit (majoring in World Languages, Literatures and Cultures), he has so far organized two such discussions. The first one was about metaphysics concealed in the universe of Mister Miracle; some kind of revelation as to how sound philosophical questions can be found in comic books. In this discussion, the question was on the reality of reality itself: would you choose to remain in a fake world where everything is okay or destroy the fake world to return to the real one, unaware of what is expecting you? In the process of discussion, one more provocative question arose: do people care about authenticity at all?
The second one was about Batman and why he does not kill Joker even when given plenty of opportunities. We investigated the morals of the characters, but the most interesting thing was that when talking about Robin, Yerik mentioned that once a new Robin appeared, there was a poll conducted among children (the audience of the comics) where they were asked if the new Robin stay or be killed, and they voted for him to be killed. Then the discussion smoothly returned to the morality of Batman, waving aside this real example as it happens so often in the world. This way, topics for discussion can arise, even from mere facts that can become a theme for club-introspective discussion.
At the beginning of Spring 2024, our club grew by almost 30% showing how the interest in philosophy is by no means waning. Having so many enthusiastic people around, we have built exciting plans for further development, including our own website, clubroom, and brand-new activities, some of which are already under active development.
The beginning of Spring 2024 was also celebrated by the biggest event in the history of the club: «Philosophy Versus», between Dr. Jim Hutchinson and Dr. Ted Parent on the topic “Does AI have a mind? And do YOU?” which garnered considerable attention, underlining how the thirst for knowledge of our students goes far beyond practical issues on how to make investments, for example. The discussion started with an exposition of why exactly we should be concerned if something has a mind or not, presented by Dr. Hutchinson. In response, Dr. Parent argued for eliminativism (eliminative materialism) and its claim that a mind might not exist per se mainly because we cannot claim any considerable discoveries in psychology since time immemorial. The “Versus” lasted for an hour and a half, and many thought-provoking ideas were expressed but still, it left us with a feeling that things were still unfinished and an invitation for further thinking and discussion.
Recently, we finally introduced long-awaited book club-like discussions, and the first one was with Dr. Maria Rybakova, a renowned member of our community, a writer, and a professor of literature. The topic was the short story by Franz Kafka, Metamorphosis. The discussion gathered a small but active circle eager to look at the story from varied perspectives, and it led to many interpretations revealing the whole spectrum of, sometimes contrasting, worldviews.
The life of our club is intense, and we never feel tired of trying something new or simply talking about philosophy. Our Instagram page is regularly updated, and everyone is welcome to follow and participate in discussions there.
Lyubov Vassilets
Lyubov Vassilets is a first-year Biomedical Engineering graduate and a philosopher in the heart. She has been a content writer at Vox since Fall 2023 and enjoys it. She plans to work in neuroscience, hoping to contribute to the effort to give people more opportunities to enjoy philosophy and thinking.
This post is fantastic! The writing, the idea, everything! I was very lucky to teach at this university for 4 and half years. The students are are no short of amazing!
Amazing students, as Vlad says. I really enjoyed teaching them.