Cosmic Ecology and Plato's Timaeus- open session in London

When

November 18, 2024    
6:30 PM - 8:00 PM

Where

London - Cecil Sharp House
2 Regent's Park Rd , London, NW1 7AY

Event Type

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The ecological crisis facing us and the generations to come arises directly out of our present worldview – one that has emerged from the philosophies that previous generations consciously or unconsciously adopted. While practical solutions to the crisis need to be implemented with a degree of urgency, we cannot afford to ignore the underlying philosophical dimension to our problems: for whatever solutions we choose, if they are born out of the same worldview that landed us in our present troubles, they are likely to repeat, in a slightly different form, the same circumstances.

We will look at some of the important affirmations that Plato has his main speaker, Timaeus, make. We may, perhaps, catch a glimpse of an ancient worldview – a cosmos that is itself one living animal, beautiful and full of intelligence. We may even see why the cosmos is called “a blessed” god: and in so doing we may begin to imagine practical solutions less likely to fall back into the present impasse.

These evenings include short talks and/or readings from Platonic writings – but we hope they will be genuinely interactive, with all participants invited to contribute to our collaborative search for truth. No previous experience of formal philosophy is required.

Admission is free, but we do encourage those who are able to donate £5 in order to cover our costs, either as cash on the day or donating through this website

Most of these evenings are self-contained and every effort is made to make them accessible to the newcomer, while allowing the great profundity of the Platonic tradition to step forward and speak to us at whatever level our present understanding sits. Some of these sessions are coupled together, in order to give us the space to examine more fully particular texts and themes, but even here we will ensure that if those attending have missed the first of the two sessions a recap of what has gone before will help all participants to pick up the main threads of the theme.

We will be drawing from the following paper, please download the PDF here: Platos Cosmic Ecology – the Timaeus v2

The Trust has run similar activities for some 18 years, and in our experience they allow the most profound questions concerning human life, the nature of reality, and our interactions, to be explored at once both seriously and with good cheer. Our aim is to provide a forum for honest and straight-forward enquiry, but which is unafraid to explore inward-moving paths too often neglected by modern schools of thought.

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