The Philosophy Club

Discussion Papers

The Philosophy Club at Sydney Grammar School had its first meeting in 1991. It has continued since then, attracting a membership of about 30 boys each year. The aim of the club is to stimulate interest in philosophy among the boys. Although any boy may join, most of the regular attenders are from Forms 4, 5 and 6. A few boys from the club have gone on to study philosophy at university.

Meetings are run like a university philosophy tutorial. A day or two before the meeting each boy in the club receives a short discussion paper examining a particular philosophical question which is then discussed at the meeting. Examples of philosophical questions that have been discussed are:

1. Does God exist?
2. Do human beings have free will?
3. What is the nature of the human mind?
4. What is a right?
5. Do human beings have any knowledge at all?
6. What is a cause?
7. Is it morally worse to actively kill a person than to passively allow that person to die?

There also have been, over the years, a number of guest speakers at the club – philosophers from Sydney University, members of the Sydney Grammar teaching staff and also boys within the club. The greatest highlight in the Club's history occurred with the visit of Professor Simon Blackburn from Cambridge University. He gave two talks to the Club - one on the philosophy of mind and the other on the foundations of ethics. Both were very successful.

F. A. Amati and J. F. Cayzer

Discussion Papers

The following table lists some of the discussion papers that have been used in the Philosophy Club.

1. The Abortion Debate: A Different Approach
2. What is a Cause?
3. Whether “Could have done otherwise” (CDO) is a necessary condition for moral responsibility
4. Descartes: The First Meditation
5. Descartes: “I think, therefore I am”
6. The Design Argument for the existence of God
7. Comparing active killing with passive allowing to die
8. Dualism and the nature of the mind
9. The problem of evil and the existence of God
10. The problem of free will
11. The identity theory of the mind
12. The problem of induction
13. Giving an account of knowledge
14. Kuhn's book “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”
15. The Ontological Argument for the existence of God
16. What makes me the person I am
17. The possibility of a priori knowledge
18. Rawls's theory of justice
19. Relativism in ethics
20. Discussion of Utilitarianism
21. Can a Robot be Conscious?
22. Morality
23. Functionalism: A materialist Theory of the Mind
24. Some Moral Issues about War
25. The Meaning of Life
26. Realism and Instrumentalism in Science
27. Scientific Research and Censorship
28. Is There a Right to be Rescued?
29. Punishment
30. Why Obey Laws?
31. The Matrix, Brains in a Vat and Scepticism
32. Some Problems for a Materialist Theory of Mind
33. Ethics and Killing
34. The Emotive Theory of Ethics
35. The Paradox of Deterrence
36. Democracy: Definition and Problems
37. Civil Disobedience
38. Some Arguments Against Capital Punishment
39. Big Bang Cosmology and the Existence of God
40. What is a Right?