Our purpose
The Independent School of Philosophy is dedicated to the cultivation of the most important human freedom, the freedom of the mind. Philosophy is the attempt to understand the whole of human existence. The various inquiries and sciences that issue from philosophy centre around the basic question we all face: what makes for a genuinely happy or excellent life?
Our Classes
We offer introductory classes which do not presume any prior reading or study. The only prerequisite is an interest in the broader questions. Active participation encouraged but entirely optional.
Try a class for free or email us with any queries.
Participation
Learning from these texts is helped by your articulating what you think along the way.
While certain technical subjects can be communicated en masse, comprehensive works of philosophy and literature benefit from the articulation of varying viewpoints and questions. For that reason dialogue has been at the centre of philosophy since at least the time of Socrates. The thinkers who wrote dialogues includes Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Cicero, Galileo, Hobbes, Berkeley, Hume, Schlegel, Heidegger, and many others. Our discussions in class are meant as an attempt to join the conversation of the greatest minds.
We also discuss great works of literature by authors whose vision of human nature provides a complement or alternative to that of the philosophers.
Texts and Reading
No specific reading is expected prior to the first class of any course. Texts will be distributed before or during the first class and made available in PDF.
The first page of the first modern edition of Plato, by Henri Estienne (1578).
Estienne published under his Latin name, Henricus Stephanus, and all modern works on Plato now refer to the text by the “Stephanus numbers” of the page and sections beginning with 2a of the Euthryphro above.
A reader has underlined the words, “[Yes], for it is correct to care for the young so that they’ll become the best possible, just as it’s fitting for a good farmer to care for the young plants first, and then the rest” (2d1-4).