To best understand the DU Philosophy Club, it is important to first understand what it is that we do: we tinker, we discuss, we explore. We cover a plethora of topics, some more distinctly philosophical in nature, and other times subjects we feel will hopefully foster meaningful discussion. At the end of each quarter (which at DU spans 11 weeks), we spend a portion of the final session reflecting on some of our favorite meetings. Amongst the more recent fan-favorites include: “Is language necessarily incomplete?” “What does the ideal form of government entail?” and “Is it possible to change the past?” Furthermore, I think exploring specific anecdotes will help outline why DU Philosophy Club has been successful, because I believe what makes a good meeting is not necessarily that which incorporates the most philosophers or theories but that which gets students excited. Whenever people feel passionate about an idea and are even perhaps willing to question it, the rest will work itself out. However, the framing of our meetings may prove useful in order to understand how we foster these sessions
There are a couple of basic tenets that guide the DU Philosophy Club, the first and the one that most often requires being actively worked towards is that it is essential for attendees to not need a philosophy background to be an active participant. The club prides itself on the diversity of its community in educational backgrounds; while of course there are philosophy majors/minors, we have also had graduate students pursuing mathematics and geographic information sciences, even business and kinesiology majors.
Achieving this truly open discussion is where I feel my role as the president is most directly utilized. While anyone is more than welcome to explain the surroundings of a point, if, in the heat of the moment, they instead begin to speak directly on solipsism or utility monsters, I will pause the discussion and explain what those are. Oftentimes this can even help better clarify the person in question’s meaning as it might not be about the whole of dualism they wish to speak, and instead solely the hard problem of consciousness. While I do feel this sort of backfilling can become a bit tedious on occasion, it is absolutely necessary to ensuring all members can engage meaningfully.
Concerning meeting selection, one can see where the two other officers are most valuable. Any member is free to suggest/request a topic for a meeting but, most commonly, it is the Treasurer, Vice President, or I who determines the topic for a given week Our topics are generally thematic in nature (war, consciousness, ethics, etc.). Then, from those themes, questions are brainstormed, these may be vague such as “What do we count as religion?” to specific passages an officer may have read from a text in a class. We then send out a list of possible questions in our weekly email in addition to reminding the club of our meetings.
The questions are designed to be a roadmap to the meetings. Generally, we spend the first 10-15 minutes laying out imperfect definitions so as to not fall into semantical issues. We then proceed to work through our list of questions, moving on when everyone has said their piece or topics become too niche.
It is not at all uncommon to find ourselves down enough rabbit holes that we miss out on some of the preplanned questions. If any member did fancy a question we missed, it might serve as the jumping-off point of next week’s meeting; otherwise, we pick a new theme and trudge on. In deciding these themes is where the Philosophy Department faculty shines. While we largely operate independently, nearly all themes are inspired by the courses each member may be taking or have taken.
Moving back towards where the club most shines, one such success is that of when we have worked through language’s alleged completeness. More specifically we engaged with thoughts put forth by Wittgenstein, trying to understand his conceptions of various “worlds” as opposed to “reality.” One of the linchpins of the discussion was trying to articulate that if language cannot in fact map onto reality, how can one discuss the fact that it does not? In other words, if we cannot talk about language, how can we be having a discussion at all? As will be discussed later with the intended framing of the club, this was one of the more in-the-weeds meetings where quite a bit of time was dedicated to ensuring all parties present understood what students meant when they would reference various theories. While not every meeting should spend so much time backfilling concepts, I think people thoroughly enjoyed how much they learned about more established beliefs within contemporary philosophy due to this.
Another of the club’s favorite meetings was dedicated to the aforementioned ideal form of government and was less strictly philosophical. While political philosophy certainly was relevant throughout, we took a far more liberal approach in having each member propose what they felt would make the “perfect government” and then others would weigh in on where problems might arise and collectively try to mediate them. Personally, I found this quite exciting, with one member taking the “good dictator” approach, before ultimately relenting that at the very least some problem occurs with the transfer of power. Interestingly, democracy was largely untouched in the discussion of what a good government would look like. Our collective solution arrived at the idea of a lottery system recruiting a certain ratio of the population, perhaps 1:10,000 in our smaller society of 5 million who would serve for 2 years deciding laws for the people. As the meeting progressed, governmental framings became progressively more nuanced, and it was wonderful to see individuals who are more traditionally silent chime in with potential solutions they have engaged with in their own lives.
Finally, our most hotly contested meeting was whether it was possible to change/rewrite history. A split that emerged during it which I found fascinating was those who were more STEM-oriented seemed to staunchly defend the idea that what “actually happened” millennia ago is essential, differing from those with a more metaphysical disposition holding our present conceptions and understandings of it are all that would be required to “change history.” While we most certainly did not arrive at a unanimous consensus, members of both sides felt they had “won” the debate and there were likewise people who changed their opinions throughout. To me, that is the best evidence of a successful meeting one can ever find. Of course, while discussing themes is not the club’s only pastime and, while our other activities are less common, I believe them to be equally essential. Included in these is one of the primary ambitions of the club, to have a guest speaker of some sort once every quarter.
The decision of what type of speaker may be most exciting is one the whole club works towards. This is accomplished by asking continuously across multiple meetings preferences in order to ensure all members get a say and it is not solely decided by a handful who may be present any one week. Similarly to the meeting topics, this is done thematically, hearing what genre of presentation might be most interesting. This may take shape as learning how logic is utilized across different fields, or just wanting to hear an academic’s cutting-edge research, perhaps even a very niche topic that is likely to be new for everyone involved.
Once the topic is loosely agreed upon, then I may contact the faculty to hear their thoughts and opinions on it. This is because it is not at all uncommon that they know a professor at another institution who may be willing to visit to give a presentation. They have additionally been more than willing to reach out themselves if my cold-emailing has proved less than successful, however, I have been surprised by just how willing experts have been to come talk to us. Generally, the club prefers to have speakers outside the Philosophy Department, though they need not be outside the university altogether. The thought process being that while many people in the club have likely met with the Philosophy Department Faculty, it is likely that those same members have never met someone from the law school or math department. Though admittedly it has been exciting having other institutions visit us to speak and hear how their work differs from that of DU.
Apart from the labor involved in finding a willing speaker, one issue that was very surprising to me, is how even if someone has said they would be happy to present X topic to the club, they do not always end up sticking to said subject matter. This has had both positives and negatives, sometimes it has been fascinating hearing about reincarnation when we expected dualism. Other times it has unfortunately led to much less ideal presentations, including one that amounted to 1.5 hours detailing a man’s experiences with herculean quantities of various psychedelics. Despite this, it has proved to be a worthwhile gamble as our guest speakers have routinely been our most well-attended meetings, averaging over 30 members (and non-members) demonstrating a clear interest in what we are working towards.
But, I suppose then the question is: what it is we are working toward? Personally, I believe it’s creating a space to tinker. There is so much more that could be said, that it’s an exploration of ideas, a purer form of debate, or something else entirely, all of which may be true in some ways but, to me, attempting to build the club into that sort of prestige in some ways misses the point. The Philosophy Club is exciting because it’s a time when people can just wonder of their own accord. No one is pressured to have any answers, or even really find answers. Instead, they can ask simply for the question’s sake.
I think my colleagues would likely agree with my description, granted few people say tinker anymore, but they would probably speak more about what they get out of it. Though I believe that what they get out of it actually is just time to tinker. Some of the business majors, for example, have commented that they attend because it makes them question things they would never think of otherwise. That they live in such an absolute world, and the club can cast doubt on all that certainty.
Everywhere, but universities especially, there are so often countless problems and questions that must be answered, whether it be for an assignment or exam, but that’s not the point of the Philosophy Club. Everyone who attends comes by choice, they could be anywhere else, doing their mountains of reading or legions of essays, but instead, they come to just talk things out. For the love of the knowledge perhaps, or maybe they just like the occasional snacks and tea.
Oftentimes, people get so bogged down by life they can forget what it’s like to just think and I would like to believe that in some ways D U Philosophy Club gives people that chance. No lives are being saved, no crisis averted, people are just tinkering with little problems that might not change much of anything. But then again, that’s all it really takes to change everything. Just a little tinkering.
The same should be said of the department as well, it has given me a new perspective on my framing of higher education, and perhaps in the process reminded me of what it always should have been. That it is not only okay, but essential, to learn for the love of it. Similar to what we do in the DU Philosophy Club, the Philosophy Department allows me to explore ideas simply because they are intriguing.
While I am sure virtually all professors across any institution would love to have students genuinely interested in learning their material for its own sake, the Philosophy Department adds a degree of tangibility to this memento. For me that has taken the form of sitting-in/auditing classes; in the Philosophy Department students are welcome to sit in on classes they find interesting, this may be one day or the whole of the quarter. Not only are they allowed to be present but if they have questions about the content, they are welcome to ask (in addition to being given access to the course materials to read along or watch films that may be relevant). This has allowed me to explore numerous philosophical concepts that I otherwise would have been unable to due to scheduling limitations. So much so that at this point I have audited almost as many courses as I have taken.
This is to say that I have been reminded through my philosophy education why I am in higher education at all, and that is to learn. While I more than hope to find a job at its conclusion, if my education was solely a means to an end, I would take the easiest classes and graduate as fast as possible. That is not my objective, it is to be a better human, one that can work through ideas and engage with them for the love of it, not to know their utility. Due to the Philosophy Department, I know that should I find myself in a world that silences curiousness, I must find another. I can only hope the DU Philosophy Club has begun to foster something similar.
Alex Rushinsky
Alex Rushinsky is a student from the University of Denver, currently pursuing concurrent degrees, including a Bachelor of Arts double major in Philosophy and Sociology as well as a Bachelor of Science double major in Mathematics and Psychology. Alex serves as the president of the DU Philosophy Club and the Student Departmental Representative of the Philosophy Department.
