Reuman Reading Group

PHILOreuman
Every semester, the Philosophy Department at Colby College sponsors an informal faculty-student reading group for philosophers and friends to meet, eat, and philosophize. Although the Robert E. Reuman Reading Group was officially established in 1998, its roots go much further back in the Department's history to Professor Reuman who regularly organized and hosted similar groups.

Bob Reuman was an extraordinary professor of philosophy, combining intellectual profundity and moral integrity with intellectual integrity and moral profundity. The Reuman Reading Group was established by his colleagues, students, prison-mates*, and friends as fitting and lasting reminder of what can be so special about philosophy at a residential liberal arts college.

In recent years, typical Reuman Groups have included between 12 and 18 students, and between 3 and 7 faculty members - including faculty from other academic departments, philosophers from other colleges, and even faculty on sabbatical! But perhaps that shouldn't be much of a surprise because our once a week dinners feature the compelling attractions of jovial camaraderie and lively, free-wheeling philosophical conversation (sometimes even staying on topic).

* Bob Reuman was sentenced to a year and a day (making him officially a felon) in a federal penitentiary for refusing to register for the peace-time draft. The draft board could not understand how the captain of a college football team and the president of his fraternity could be, on purely philosophical grounds, a genuine conscientious objector. For full memorial minutes for Bob Reuman, a eulogy can be read here.

What We're Reading Now:


world-hypotheses-study-in-evidence-stephen-pepper-paperback-cover-art

"World Hypotheses: A Study in Evidence" – Stephen Coburn  Pepper

In setting forth his root-metaphor theory and examining six such hypothesis - animism, mysticism, formism, mechanism, contextualism and organicism - Pepper surveys the whole field of metaphysics. Because this book is an analytical study, it stresses issues rather than men. It seeks to exhibit the source of these issues and to show that some are unnecessary; that the rest gather into clusters and are interconnected in systems corresponding closely to the traditional schools of philosophy. The virtue of the root-metaphor method is that it puts metaphysics on a purely factual basis and pushes philosophical issues back to the interpretation of evidence.

What We've Read in the Past:


Nathanson
 
moralfool_1
 
wehaveneverbeenmodern
 
theheartofwhatmatters
 
thestructureofscientific
thereallyhardproblem
 
moralclarity
 
mortal-questions
 
achievingourcountry
 
theatrocityparadigm
erosinplato
 
experimentsinethics
 
truthaguide
 
classicasianphilosophy
oneworld
 
moral-imagination
 
theethicsofidentity
 
thesimpsons