First Ever Philosophy Foosball Club Dinner a Success!

FIRST EVER PHILOSOPHY FOOSBALL CLUB DINNER A SUCCESS!

The evening of Thursday, October 8 2009, was the first ever Philosophy Foosball Club Dinner (see photos below). Assuming that there exists a Platonic form of The Good Dinner which we can use as a standard of excellence, the PFC dinner was excellent—a success!

Here are some details:

1. The dinner was held at Dr. V's home in Steinbach. Excellent catering was provided by Carla (Dr. V's wife) and Thomas (Carla's and Dr. V's son, who that evening also had to go to the Steinbach Regional Secondary School to receive a Culinary Arts Award). (Tom was congratulated at the PFC dinner with three loud cheers from the Philosophy Foosballers.)

2. Joining the PFC event were Carla's parents from Medicine Hat, Alberta. (It was learned later from Carla's mother that Carla's mother and student Clayton Swan danced in the kitchen, but that's a story for another time.)

3. Joining the PFC event too was a special guest from Thunder Bay, Ontario: Elizabeth Busby! We're glad you made it, Elizabeth. To paraphrase Anselm (sort of), you are a Philosophy Foosballer than which it’s extremely difficult to conceive of one greater!

4. In total, 14 students/former students from Providence College attended the dinner. (Extra thanks go to Carla for the fine—and large—meal.)

5. After dinner, we engaged in several deeply interesting philosophical discussions, ranging from the nature and efficacy of argument, to the question of what it means to have a "common ground," to the question of the whether randomness and God's foreknowledge are logically consistent, to the question of how many earlobes Aubrey Dyck actually has. (Regarding the earlobe question, see photos below. Be sure to notice how far Mark Jensen has gotten by counting carefully on his pinky. Notice too the deep concentration shown by Marilyn Peters as she counts Aubrey's earlobes by hand. Yes, that's Marilyn's head on the TV tray table.)

6. After the philosophical discussions, numbers were drawn (in honour of Pythagoras?) and students were allowed, in an orderly fashion, to (a) enter the tiny hallway to Dr. V's sacred space (a.k.a. his basement office/cellar), (b) sift through a large pile of books (which no longer fit in Dr. V's office/cellar), and (c) take home some favourites.

7. Also after the philosophical discussions, and during the "book crawl," the Philosophy Foosballers broadened their horizons by playing some video games—high speed auto racing—and some hard-shooting Crokinole. Happily, nobody was injured. (Well, perhaps the egos of Jeremy Gerbrandt and Mark Gareau were slightly injured when they lost so miserably to the excellent team work of Clinton Enns and Dr. V.)

Again, the first ever Philosophy Foosball Club dinner was excellent—a wonderful success. Thanks to all who attended.

- Dr. V

1 comments:

Hendrik van der Breggen said...

P.S. I forgot to mention that another highlight of the evening was that Robert Montgomery took multiple orders for "Persians", a delicious doughnut pastry of sorts found only in Thunder Bay, Ontario. This would be a highlight only for those of us who know and love these "Persians." (Yes, we can wonder whether Plato knew about them long before Thunder Bay did.)