Derek Parfit's On What Matters
Philosophy Book Club is intended to be a community where people interested in philosophy can read and discuss key texts over several weeks or even months – philosophy is best digested slowly, and in company. Our dream is for it to expand and allow many discussions on many philosophy books of people's choosing simultaneously. But we're going to get things off the ground with just one book; Derek Parfit’s groundbreaking On What Matters (2011), which the philosopher Peter Singer described as having 'for the first time in decades, put those who reject objectivism in ethics on the defensive.' Singer also helpfully noted that ' the core of the argument comes in the first 400 pages, which is not an insurmountable challenge for the intellectually curious - particularly given that Parfit, in the best tradition of English-language philosophy, always strives for lucidity, never using obscure words where simple ones will do.' So we will stick to the first 400 pages in the book club, which we will read over 4 months - April to August 2018. As it's our inaugural reading group IT'S GOING TO BE FREE! (subsequent ones may be free as well - we'll see how it goes). Discussion will take place in a Moodle forum. You can sign up for the On What Matters reading group or put forward suggestions for future reading groups below.