| Status: | Active, open to new members |
| Group leader: | |
| When: | On Friday mornings 11:30 3rd Friday at 11.30am |
To give you an idea of what we do, here are some of the topics covered this year::
Jean-Jacques Rousseau Romanticism - What’s it all about? Romanticism in Art, presented by Caroline Lewis
The 17th Century and the Age of Reason, starting with Thomas Hobbes and John Locke
Why We Believe,, presented by Caroline Lewis and Francis Buxton
A Fresh View of the World: Some Ideas from Other Places and Other Times, presented by by Caroline Lewis
Challenging Materialism, presented by Carolyn Bridgewater
JANUARY 2026 What is Happiness? After a very lively November meeting on Challenging Materialism, it was good to see that the energy was very much still in the room.
FEBRUARY: Schopenhauer on Happiness and Jeremy Bentham on Utilitarianism
Plenty to get our teeth into there. Result: Utilitarianism put on the shelf for the time being.
MARCH: Extracts published in The Observer, from Richard Layard’s 2020 book Can We Be
Happier? Evidence and Ethics, produced a robust response.
Richard Layard was appointed the UK’s Happiness Tsar on 2007.
APRIL: What do William Golding’s Lord of the Flies and Voltaire’s Candide have in common?
MAY: April’s topic continued. Lord of the Flies produced some strong responses.
We did not get around to comparing Golding’s views with Voltaire’s.
If members agree we’ll continue later in the year. Meanwhile in
June: Woke - what truths are allowed? presented by Andrew Kilsby
This is not a passive group, It is a safe place to voice ideas and be prepared for those ideas to be challenged.
New members are very welcome.
We meet on the third Friday of the month at 11.30.