The Philosophy Club

"The Philosophy Club is a space for FLAME Students to discuss and learn philosophy irrespective of their background or exposure to philosophical thought. We hope to do away with the notion that philosophy is intimidating, and encourage everyone to engage with the discipline and integrate it with their field of study at FLAME University."

What does the club entail?

To encourage deliberations on topics of philosophy, the club engages members in activities such as:

A) Themed meetings and discussions

B) Guest lectures (proposed)

C) Philosophical games and thought experiments

D) Film screenings & Tutorials

Meeting 01 (December)

The first meeting was intended to introduce the club and its agenda, and build interest for its activities through a film screening, and subsequent discussion on philosophical themes portrayed in the film. Upon suggestion from Professor Avani Sabade - Our faculty advisor for the club, we screened "The Matrix", which went on for two hours. Around 6-7 students attended the screening, and, once it had finished, we discussed several concepts that the film portrayed - from reality to knowledge, to even consciousness. This discussion ensued for around half-an-hour. Overall, the students enjoyed the session.

Meeting 02 (January)

The second meeting was conducted with our core team. The purpose of this session was to garner suggestions for potential club activities, and gauge interests and preferences with regard to topics in philosophy. Additionally, the core team's ideas was also taken into consideration. Several suggestions and ideas were developed, which have been detailed below:

Activity ideas:

• • Regular film screenings

  • Film-making

  • Debates and discussions

  • Games (including relevant board games)

  • Attending and hosting philosophy events/fests

  • Writing events/ Opportunities for scholarly writing

Topic ideas

• • Absurdism

  • Epistemology

  • Relativism

  • World Philosophy

Meeting 03 (February)

The third meeting was an introductory session on epistemology (we had decided to follow a monthly cycle, wherein each month, we cover one theme or topic). The session began with a game of mafia (a murder mystery game involving a murderer, a police person, a doctor and a group of individuals who had to guess who the killer was), with the purpose of instigating thought about how it is we know the things we claim to know. This went on for about twenty minutes. After this, we began a discussion with a prompt - "what does it mean to know something"? We asked everyone to tell us what they thought, and as everyone kept answering, we produced a mind-map with all of the answers we had. The purpose of this was to simply gauge the overall understanding of epistemology for future reference. The discussion covered many aspects - from the kinds of knowledge, to the ways of knowing to even what constitutes knowing at all. Later, we also screened a five minute clip, which provided a basic understanding of epistemology as a field. The Discussion continued post this, however, we paused the discussion due to time constraints.

Meeting 04 (September)

The fourth meeting was actually our very first meeting as an officiated club. We introduced our club, EC members and Faculty advisor. Then, we provided a brief overview of club activities planned for the year and also introduced our very own club magazine (The Philouette). This was followed by a conversation with all the attendees as to what they understand by Philosophy as a discipline.

Meeting 05 (October)

We screened an episode of the Good Place, and subsequently had a discussion based on philosophical concepts from the show. Some themes that arose from discussions were Morality, Penance, Afterlife, Justice systems, and Altruism.

Meeting 06 (October)

In light of Exam Week, A "rant session" was organised where students expressed their frustrations around exams and academics. This was followed by a brief discussion on the following: Boredom and the Pandemic, Breaks between terms, the importance of studying literature in the context in which it was produced, and Online Classes vs Physical Classes.

Meeting 07 (October)

We hosted a Halloween Eve Special film screening of "1408", a film of the horror genre that primarily deals with themes such as the nature of evil and the perception of reality, which are some interesting topics to engage with in philosophy. Most of us in the audience were quite spooked by the film, which made for a great Halloween experience!

Meeting 08 (November)

Following our screening of the film - "1408", we held a short discussion over the philosophical themes portrayed in the film. Some of the themes we discussed included "Nature of Reality", "afterlife", "fear" and the nature of "evil". Following the discussion we had a small icebreaking session

Meeting 09 (November)

Our discussion was based on some thought experiments from the book titled, “The Pig that wants to be eaten”. The thought experiments were presented on the screen which were read followed by a discussion on the same. The said experiments helped us discuss infidelity, the nature of pain, death, suffering and rationality in some depth. Professor Avani Sabade also joined in our meet and shared her insights on these themes.