Someplace nearly in the course of the Eurasian continent, on the wuthering planes of Central Kazakhstan, in Astana, our college arose simply 13 years in the past as an try to supply world-class training, attracting professionals internationally. All of the programs are taught in English, making the final neighborhood at the very least trilingual: Kazakh, Russian, and English.
On this respect, considered one of our former Philosophy professors, Christopher Noonan, confessed he’s proficient solely in English and expressed his admiration for folks efficiently finding out philosophy in a language international to them as a result of the complexity of a philosophical textual content goes far past grammar and vocabulary. It’s typically tough to know or talk all of the span of a philosophical thought whereas studying or writing about it even when doing so in your mom tongue.
Our membership averted the COVID-19 disaster by commencing after in-person lessons had been restored in Spring 2023, when Dr. Jim Hutchinson (our mentor, and the very embodiment of a dwelling thoughts, in my view) first proposed to conduct discussions the place each pupil was welcome to take part. A number of preliminary conferences happened by which totally different matters had been mentioned in a pleasant and interesting method. These conferences had been gathering on common 10 to twenty college students. On one event, it was recommended to carry these conferences to a better qualitative stage of existence by establishing them as a membership. Two volunteers raised their palms, Azamat Dybyssov (majoring in World Languages, Literatures and Cultures), the present president of the membership, and Adiya Yessengali (majoring in Sociology), the present vice-president. And thus, the official story of our Philosophy Membership Vox started. In case you marvel concerning the purpose for selecting this title, the reply is: “It sounded cool and in Latin.”
The beginning of the membership was full of actions: common conferences with professors, discussions, and participation in a charity truthful. Additionally, since its starting, Tealosophy has change into one of many marks of our membership, held as soon as a semester. Right here, college students and professors meet in a casual ambiance to drink tea (or espresso, we’re fairly inclusive) and eat pizza. Upon writing this text it was came upon that there’s one other Tealosophy talked about on the Web, however the best distinction is the truth that we prioritize the second half (coming from Philosophy), over the primary.
It’s price mentioning that there isn’t any Philosophy main at our college and, thus far, solely a minor in Philosophy and Religions is obtainable. Due to this fact, our membership unites folks with typically stunning backgrounds: from petroleum and chemical engineering to world language and literature. This ipso facto creates a novel ambiance of openness and multidimensionality, the place everybody feels equally entitled to share their concepts, and individuals are linked by the widespread love of philosophy and a try to seek out the reality.
Fall 2023 introduced new members to the membership and new occasions: open dialogue, student-led lecture discussions, mentor conferences, and making a podcast Plato’s Plov (the first episode is already on YouTube, and the following one is already scheduled).
Open discussions by no means fail to draw a number of new people who find themselves wanting to share their ideas regarding diverse matters: from the objectivity of ethics to present information in a philosophical context. A few of them later apply to change into official members of our membership, however everyone seems to be welcome even when they solely want to attend one session. Normally, open discussions are partaking however fairly chaotic, enjoying the function of a “primordial soup” from which some attention-grabbing “life” within the type of concepts can emerge to be ultimately mentioned extra in-depth.
Scholar-led discussions had been pioneered by our present Head of the Media division Yerik Zhanseiit (majoring in World Languages, Literatures and Cultures), he has thus far organized two such discussions. The primary one was about metaphysics hid within the universe of Mister Miracle; some type of revelation as to how sound philosophical questions might be present in comedian books. On this dialogue, the query was on the truth of actuality itself: would you select to stay in a pretend world the place the whole lot is okay or destroy the pretend world to return to the actual one, unaware of what’s anticipating you? Within the course of of debate, another provocative query arose: do folks care about authenticity in any respect?
The second was about Batman and why he doesn’t kill Joker even when given loads of alternatives. We investigated the morals of the characters, however essentially the most attention-grabbing factor was that when speaking about Robin, Yerik talked about that when a brand new Robin appeared, there was a ballot carried out amongst youngsters (the viewers of the comics) the place they had been requested if the brand new Robin keep or be killed, and so they voted for him to be killed. Then the dialogue easily returned to the morality of Batman, waving apart this actual instance because it occurs so typically on this planet. This manner, matters for dialogue can come up, even from mere info that may change into a theme for club-introspective dialogue.
At first of Spring 2024, our membership grew by nearly 30% displaying how the curiosity in philosophy is certainly not waning. Having so many enthusiastic folks round, we now have constructed thrilling plans for additional growth, together with our personal web site, clubroom, and brand-new actions, a few of that are already underneath energetic growth.
The start of Spring 2024 was additionally celebrated by the largest occasion within the historical past of the membership: «Philosophy Versus», between Dr. Jim Hutchinson and Dr. Ted Mother or father on the subject “Does AI have a thoughts? And do YOU?” which garnered appreciable consideration, underlining how the thirst for data of our college students goes far past sensible points on tips on how to make investments, for instance. The dialogue began with an exposition of why precisely we must be involved if one thing has a thoughts or not, offered by Dr. Hutchinson. In response, Dr. Mother or father argued for eliminativism (eliminative materialism) and its declare {that a} thoughts may not exist per se primarily as a result of we can’t declare any appreciable discoveries in psychology since time immemorial. The “Versus” lasted for an hour and a half, and lots of thought-provoking concepts had been expressed however nonetheless, it left us with a sense that issues had been nonetheless unfinished and an invite for additional pondering and dialogue.
Not too long ago, we lastly launched long-awaited guide club-like discussions, and the primary one was with Dr. Maria Rybakova, a famend member of our neighborhood, a author, and a professor of literature. The subject was the brief story by Franz Kafka, Metamorphosis. The dialogue gathered a small however energetic circle keen to take a look at the story from diverse views, and it led to many interpretations revealing the entire spectrum of, typically contrasting, worldviews.
The lifetime of our membership is intense, and we by no means really feel uninterested in attempting one thing new or just speaking about philosophy. Our Instagram web page is frequently up to date, and everyone seems to be welcome to comply with and take part in discussions there.
Lyubov Vassilets
Lyubov Vassilets is a first-year Biomedical Engineering graduate and a thinker within the coronary heart. She has been a content material author at Vox since Fall 2023 and enjoys it. She plans to work in neuroscience, hoping to contribute to the hassle to provide folks extra alternatives to get pleasure from philosophy and pondering.
