Philosophizing in the Modern World at New Acropolis
At GCE, our mission of connecting our studies to real-world situations and activities with a global focus finds quite a bit of overlap with New Acropolis, who define their work as:
At the heart of the activities of New Acropolis is its School of Philosophy, which we understand as a way of life, that is, as a means of access to spiritual knowledge and to individual and collective realization. New Acropolis celebrates World Philosophy Day in Brazil. The School of Philosophy of NA is inspired by the powerful Platonic tradition to promote philosophy as a model of life that is based on knowledge and development of the qualities of each human being. This School of Philosophy has a Program of Studies which is common to all countries and is taught in successive levels. It provides an updated version of the traditional knowledge of East and West, which, in accordance with classical humanism, combines the study of sciences, arts, religions and philosophies in a comparative way.
Students in Who Am I? visited New Acropolis’ Chicago location in order to begin their investigation into Descartes, Freud, and “doubt.” The philosophers-in-training spent the afternoon pondering their own pandavas (virtues) and kuravas (shortcomings) with Shira and Gilad. They were introduced to the Bhagavad Gita and the philosophies behind karma and dharma.
What a great experience for the students, in a world where, it seems, thinking isn’t particularly valued. I enjoyed reading about the School of Philosophy.
Brent, as always, enriches the lives and brains of his students.
Eleanor
Thank you so much, Eleanor! It means a lot to hear that from someone with your breadth and depth of knowledge and experience.
We’ll be meeting with New Acropolis again in a few weeks, which I’m particularly excited about because it seems to me that an encounter with philosophy is even more urgent in our current moment. Glad that Stephanie helped create this connection!