Online SOPHIA Network Meeting – 18 January 2025
This year, we are holding the inaugural online meeting on January 18th from 13:30 to 17:00 CET. The theme will be The Unity of Opposites, same as this year’s gathering.
We are very excited about having two speakers lined up based on conversations we have had online since the meeting.
Pablo Lamberti – Philosophy as a way of living
Ellen Duthie – Philosophy as a way of dying
There will also be an opportunity for our network announcements and for people to go into break-out rooms to have meta discussions about what we heard or any other business. We hope you can join us.
Members can register here
To become a member click here
Programme
Philosophy as a way of living
Pablo M. Lamberti is a researcher and educator with a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Amsterdam. His work focuses on practical, interdisciplinary, and intercultural philosophy. He has an
extensive publishing record, including peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and two Dutch-language monographs, covering diverse topics such as education, artificial intelligence, and martial arts.
In his latest book, Lamberti builds on the ideas of Pierre Hadot to conceptualize philosophy as a way of life. Drawing on the teachings of classical thinkers like Seneca, Plutarch, and Marcus Aurelius, he
explores their philosophical exercises and the lifestyles they cultivated. Lamberti also breathes new life into these ancient practices, offering insights on how they can inspire us to craft a modern, meaningful philosophical approach to living.
Philosophy as a way of dying
The question ‘Isn’t childhood too early for philosophy?’ involves beliefs about children’s intellectual capabilities, but also beliefs about adult responsibilities towards children in terms of what kind of topics and what kind of inquiries might be suitable for them to engage in.
If we take Socrates’ view of philosophy as melete thanatou (practising how to die) or Montaigne’s ‘Que philosopher c’est apprendre à mourir’ (‘philosophising is learning to die’), the question interestingly morphs into ‘Isn’t childhood too early to start learning to die?’, adding to the beliefs mentioned earlier, concern over one of our society’s greatest taboos.
Addressing some of the specific questions this raises for the practice of philosophical inquiry with children, this talk will provide an overview of a four-year-long project involving designing and carrying out workshops with children aged 5 to 15 in twelve different countries across the world to generate interesting and varied questions about death, followed by the publication of the book Dying to Ask. 38 Questions from Kids about Death, and continuing in further workshops since.
Ellen Duthie is the founder of the Wonder Ponder project of philosophy and literature for children, established in Spain in 2014. She is the author of nine books, all of which explore and suggest different ways of relating to questions, often combining elements of fiction and non-fiction.
Her series of Visual Philosophy for all ages (Cruelty Bites, I, Person, Whatever You Want and Pinch Me!), won the Premio Andersen award to the best publishing project in Italy. Her introduction to philosophical curiosity Is There Anybody Out There? Interplanetary Questions for Intelligent Earthlings (coming soon in the US) won a White Ravens award from the Jugendbibliothek in Munich, as did her book Dying to Ask. 38 Questions from Kids About Death.
Ellen and her team at Wonder Ponder also organise the annual International Philosophy, Literature, Art and Childhood Course (FLAI) in the stunningly beautiful mediaeval village of Albarracín (Teruel, Spain), and direct the Wonder Ponder Academy, offering online courses on Visual philosophy, the art of asking and generating questions in educational and other contexts, and picture-book based philosophical dialogue.
