Frequently
Asked Questions (and answers)
The
Hong Kong Philosophy Cafe has held monthly meetings since September of 1999. For
the first thirteen months, meetings were held at Open Kitchen in Wan Chai,
organized by Steve Palmquist. In July
of 2000 an Executive Committee was formed to assist with implementing the
vision of establishing and overseeing the operation of multiple local
"branches" of the HKPC. Starting in October of 2000 this process
began with the transformation of the original group into the "Kowloon
Branch", held at Curtain Up in the HK Cultural Centre, Tsim Tsa Tsui (founded
by Steve Palmquist), and the setting up of a new, "Fringe Branch",
held at Fringe Club in Central (founded by Roy
Butler). In March of 2001 a third branch was set up to conduct monthly
meetings in Chinese (initially organized by a committee). In December of 2003,
two new branches were started: a French Branch, held at the Alliance Francaise
in Jordan (founded by Eric Sacher), and
the Happy Friday Branch, held initially at Zenses in Central (founded by Clifford Setyono).
Meeting
announcements and occasional monthly notices from the Executive Committee are
posted to the HKPC's email announcements list. If you would like to receive
such news relating to the HKPC as it appears, simply send the message
"subscribe" to HKphilosophycafe@yahoogroups.com,
or write to philosophycafe@yahoo.com
and say you want to be added to the mailing list. The Executive Committee also
sponsors an MSN
Community; to subscribe, click
here and follow the instructions; contact Yann Chambrier for assistance if
you have any trouble getting in.
The
current meeting details for the five branches are as follows:
Kowloon
Branch:
Organized by Alan Taylor, meets
in the second half of each month at Museum Cafe (first floor of the Hong Kong
Museum of Art, Salisbury Road, TST).
Fringe
Branch:
Organized by a committee of ExCo members, meets on the second Tuesday of each
month in the Fringe Club Fotogalerie, Central.
Chinese
Branch:
Organized by Steve Palmquist,
meeting venue varies, as does the timing of meetings (less than monthly, as
introducers become available).
French
Branch:
Organized by Eric Sacher,
meets at Alliance Francaise, 52 Jordan Road, Kowloon ((less than monthly, as introducers
become available).
Happy
Friday Branch:
Organized by Clifford Setyono, meets at
Q8, 8 Queen’s Road Central, on the fourth Friday of each month.
For
more information on any of the branches, please contact the current branch
organizer.
To
read summaries of the meetings organized by Steve, just click on the
highlighted topic, below. Clicking on the date will take you to the formal
announcement giving details of the meeting time, place, etc., for that
particular meeting. Summaries are written and/or edited by Steve Palmquist,
with assistance from others, as/when specified. The Kowloon Branch also
distributes Guidelines for Introducers and Guidelines for Moderators to assist those who
participate in either of these two ways.
·
18
June 2003: Toward
a Culture of Inquiry: David Bohm’s model of dialogue
·
27
May 2003: Is the
Orthodox (Byzantine) path to wisdom still viable today?
·
29
April 2003: Face
Masks
·
31
March 2003: Is intelligence
the path to wisdom?
·
26
February 2003: The ancient
quarrel continues: Are poetry and philosophy inseparable or irreconcilable?
·
27
January 2003: The
truth, the whole truth or anything but the truth? Problems with DNA testing and
genetic counseling
·
16
December 2002: Is life
about the search for happiness?
·
25
November 2002: Do we
use language or does language use us?
·
30
October 2002: Is
democracy an illusion?
·
24
September 2002: The
philosophy of coincidence
·
26
August 2002: Is prayer
just wishful thinking?
·
31
July 2002: Anarchy: Is
private ownership public theft?
·
19
June 2002: Does it make sense to believe in a soul?
·
29
May 2002: Why do people fall in love with ideas?
·
23
April 2002: Self-identity and survival: Are we more than
our personality?
·
October 2000: Can sports be an
alternative to religion?
·
November 2000: Is it natural to
be civilised?
·
December 2000: Does compulsory
insurance violate human rights?
·
January 2001: When should we trust?
·
February 2001: How does
consciousness emerge?
·
March 2001: Rigour vs.
insight: Two perspectives on philosophising
·
April 2001: Power: How much is too
much?
·
May 2001: Is sexism inevitable?
·
June 2001: Religion: Opium for the
masses or headache for the mighty?
·
4
February 2002:* Does it make sense to talk
about nothing?
·
25
February 2002: Are computer viruses a form of
life?
·
11
March 2002: What is the proper response to terror?
·
June
1999: Report on the preliminary meeting (based
on notes written by Grace Chan)
·
September 1999: What makes a family?
(based on notes written by Grace Chan)
·
October 1999: Marriage--what for?
·
November 1999: Can we ever
really be free? (based on notes written by Grace Chan)
·
December 1999: Does everything
happen for a reason?
·
January 2000: Are men and women
really that different?
·
February 2000: What is the value of
silence? (based on notes written by Grace Chan)
·
March 2000: Are there any
absolutes?
·
April 2000: Can love be
measured in time? (written by Roy Butler)
·
June 2000: The critical
importance of philosophy to human life
·
July 2000: Is music the language of
the universe? (May the force be with you!)
·
August 2000: What makes work
meaningful? (written by Guy Lown)
·
September 2000: How
meaningful is cultural identity? A Taoist approach (written by Guy Lown)
Steve
Palmquist has written an article on the HKPC for the South China Morning
Post, published on 30 April 2002. Click here to read a copy of
the prepublication version. (The published version appeared in an edited form,
but with only a few minor changes of substance.) Several previous articles
about the HKPC have also appeared in the same newspaper.
Steve
has been interviewed twice by Hugh Chiverton on the local Hong Kong Today
radio progarm (RTHK Radio 3). You can listen to the interviews by clicking on
the following dates: 18 July
2000 (go to clip 7, starting at 16:50) and 1 March
2001 (go to clip 7, starting at 32:50). More recently, he was interviewed
by Melanie Homer on Radio 3's "Lunchbeat" program, 10 April 2002. In
addition, excerpts and interviews from the September 2000 meeting were featured
on a subsequent edition of the "I Love the World" ("Ngau Oi Saai
Gaai") program on Radio 1, produced by Jace Au.
In
May of 2000, 20 members of the HKPC email announcements list responded to a questionnaire. By clicking on the highlighted
words in this sentence, you can read the questionnaire
on its own, as well as a synopsis of the
responses and the full texts of the
responses (with a few personal comments omitted).
Links
to other philosophy cafes around the world:
List of Philosophy Cafes in Paris
List of Philosophy Cafes in other
parts of France
Cafephiloweb (France)
List of Philosophy Cafes around the
world (outside of France)
Philosophy Cafes in and around
Vancouver, Canada
Fremantle, Australia
(sponsored by the local city council!)
London Cafe Philo (obituary)
This
page was last updated on 28 November 2007.
Back
to the main map of
Steve Palmquist's web site.