Merlin CCC

Philosophy Walk: Conversations with the World
2024-08-22 18:00 - 20:30 (America/Denver) | Spring Meadow Lake, 2715 Country Club Drive, Helena, 59601, United States
What We’ll Explore
Quite often, discussions of ethics circle around lists of rules to follow. What happens if we take a different approach altogether, and think of our ethical lives as a series of conversations with the world, with the communities we inhabit, and with our neighbors? In this evening’s walk and discussion, we’ll reflect on what it would mean to focus our ethical lives around dialogue, relationship, and conversation.
We’ll begin with a suggestion from Aristotle, who notes a close link between ethics and habits. Here, we can examine ethics as a conversation between ourselves and the families and communities in which we’re brought up, where our characters are formed — as well as ongoing adult conversations with those same societies, or with other communities that we choose for ourselves.
Then, drawing from Plato’s Phaedrus and Matthew Crawford’s work on communities practice, we’ll move on to consider the deeply transformative place of love, and its associated vulnerability, in our moral lives. Here, we’ll reflect on the difference between ethical judgments based in abstractions, and those that spring from relationships with individuals and communities.
Finally, we’ll reflect on what it would mean to expand the frame of our ethical conversations in various directions. How might we include what ecologically-informed thinkers in recent decades have called the “more than human world” of other animals, plants, and ecosystems? Or conversations across the years and the generations, with our ancestors (something like Chesterton’s “democracy of the dead”) and our descendants?
Throughout our own conversation, we’ll examine specific strategies for, and implications of, organizing our ethical lives as conversations. And we’ll reflect on some of the ways that approaching ethics as a series of conversations with the world might help us to celebrate and embrace the diversity of individual human lives, of communities and cultures, and of the more-than-human world.

When
Thursday, August 22nd from 6pm-8:30pm
Where
Spring Meadow Lake (Our group will meet in the main/North side of the lot at the far end of the entrance)
RSVP
Click here to let us know you’re coming!
Cost
FREE (Donations appreciated)
Other
Wear weather appropriate attire & comfortable shoes

Walk Leader
David Nowakowski is a philosopher and educator in the Helena area whose professional work is dedicated to helping people of all ages and backgrounds access, understand, and apply the traditions of ancient philosophy to their own lives. David began studying ancient philosophies and classical languages in 2001 and has continued ever since. A scholar of the philosophical traditions of the ancient Mediterranean (Greece, Rome, and North Africa) and of the Indian subcontinent, reading Sanskrit, Latin, and classical Greek, he earned his Ph.D. in philosophy from Princeton University in 2014. His work has appeared in a variety of scholarly journals, including Philosophy East & West, Asian Philosophy, and the Journal of Indian Philosophy, as well as in presentations to academic audiences at Harvard, Columbia University, the University of Toronto, Yale-NUS College in Singapore, and elsewhere.
After half a decade teaching at liberal arts colleges in the northeast, David chose to leave the academy in order to focus his energies on the transformative value of these ancient philosophical and spiritual traditions in his own life and practice, and on building new systems of education and community learning that will make this rich heritage alive and available to others.
A hermit by nature and by committed choice, he balances contemplative solitude with his active work in teaching, counseling, and the healing arts. David can be reached at david@merlinccc.org or via his personal website.

Make a Donation Here
Our philosophy activities are FREE to the community. While donations are never expected, they are always appreciated and help to keep programs like these going. Donations help to cover activity leader honorariums, implementation, and resource archiving, and more! If you would like to make a tax-deductible contribution you can do so by clicking here. For those facing more challenging financial circumstances, we ask that you please try to “pay it forward” with acts of kindness for your neighbors and community.

Reeder's Alley Summer Series (RASS)
2024-08-20 16:00 - 20:00, 2024-08-13 16:00 - 20:00, 2024-08-06 16:00 - 20:00, 2024-07-30 16:00 - 20:00, 2024-07-23 16:00 - 20:00 | Reeder’s Alley, 200 S. Park Avenue, Helena, MT, 59601, United States
Kick-Back & Enjoy Community!
Join us for the 2nd Season of our Reeder’s Alley Summer Series! Nestled in the grounds of historic Reeder’s Alley, this fun, grassroots-inspired Summer series hosted by community philosophy non-profit Merlin CCC features live local music, tasty eats, a beer & wine garden, historic Pioneer Cabin tours, living history, games & more.
Dog-friendly and laid-back, this community-oriented event invites you to take in the charm of the alley & history of Helena in only the way that Reeder’s Alley can offer! Bring a picnic blanket or your favorite low-riding lawn chair & grab a spot in Caretaker’s Lawn. Roam the alley, share stories, play games, eat food, sip brews or wine, and take in the tunes. What better way to celebrate Tuesday nights in Helena this coming Summer?!
Check out the 2025 Music & Activities Schedule Here!

Reeder's Alley Summer Series (RASS)
2024-08-20 16:00 - 20:00, 2024-08-13 16:00 - 20:00, 2024-08-06 16:00 - 20:00, 2024-07-30 16:00 - 20:00, 2024-07-23 16:00 - 20:00 | Reeder’s Alley, 200 S. Park Avenue, Helena, MT, 59601, United States
Kick-Back & Enjoy Community!
Nestled in the grounds of historic Reeder’s Alley, this fun, grassroots-inspired Summer series hosted by community philosophy non-profit Merlin CCC features live local music, a beer garden, food trucks, historic Pioneer Cabin & alley walking tours, living history demonstrations, lawn games, and more.
Dog-friendly and laid-back, this community-oriented event invites you to take in the charm of the alley & history of Helena in only the way that Reeder’s Alley can offer! Bring a picnic blanket or your favorite low-riding lawn chair & grab a spot in Caretaker’s Lawn. Roam the alley, share stories, play games, eat food, sip brews or wine, and take in the tunes. What better way to celebrate Tuesday nights in Helena this Summer?!
Check out the Schedule Here!

Summer La Mesa - *NO MORE SEATS*
2024-08-09 18:00 - 21:30 | Residence of Barry & Hetti Louise Ferst, 712 Holter Street, Helena, MT, 59601, United States
What are Las Mesas?
Our “Las Mesas” are intimate, salon-style gatherings where friends come together to explore philosophy and ideas over hand-crafted meals & wine. Each season, a different community member(s) hosts a “La Mesa” dinner at their house, opening up their home for community members to gather and enjoy the fun of philosophy, the beauty of rich and meaningful conversation, and the joy of good food & friends (old and new).
La mesa translates to “the table” in Spanish. It’s where people come together & break bread! It’s where stories & laughter & ideas are shared. It’s where toasts are made & moments honored. There’s something special about this — something worth cherishing & pursuing. That’s the basis & inspiration for our Las Mesas — gathering ’round a table with friends, over good food & good conversation….and, of course, philosophy!
Summer La Mesa Details

When: Friday, August 9th from 6pm-9:30pm
Hosts: Barry & Hetti Louise Ferst
Where: 712 Holter Street, Helena MT 59601
RSVP: THERE ARE NO MORE SEATS LEFT!
Other: Total guest count for our Las Mesas are limited to 10 people.
Donation: $100 per guest (includes dinner, drinks, facilitated conversation structured similar to our Philosophy Think & Drinks & good cheer!)
Proceeds from seat donations are tax-deductible, benefit Merlin CCC & go toward our free philosophy in the community programs. You can bring a check with you the night of or make a donation on-line. (If you opt for the latter, if you would please be so kind as to check the box to include the payment platform processing fee in your contribution so that the Merlin is able to apply the entire $100 donation to our programs.)

About Our Summer La Mesa Hosts

Harriet Louise Porzig Ferst spent the past 75 years trying to figure out what she wants to be called; not really a nickname, (that had been Harri-Lou when she was little), but maybe a call name, (not really liking any of those given to her by life). Recently she settled on “Hetti”, for Harriet, having learned that Social Security cares only about first and last names and a person can have as many or as few middles as she likes.
Hetti and Barry came to Helena in 1980 and she soon discovered that, as someone whose interests range broader than deeper, she might rather have earned a degree in ag (encompassing eco-diversity, food, geopolitics, mechanics, genetics, soil, health etc.) instead of her honors philosophy BA and MA from Tulane University with a concentration in aesthetics of theatre.
Having purchased a double lot with what was once the “gardener’s cottage” for the house next door, she has been kitchen gardening and food preparing ever since, exploring the lush horticultural and culinary traditions encountered on numerous drives through southern Europe, North Africa and the near Middle East hunting Roman sarcophaguses for Barry’s encyclopedic project.
Hetti served as (then) Montana Committee for the Humanities first Scholar in the Schools bringing garden plans, mosaics, fresco, Philosophy for Children, and a home-ec class Roman dinner to White Sulphur Springs schools. She also earned National Endowment teacher fellowships to explore the landscape tradition in early Renaissance Sienese fresco and to consider how Persian construction of walled gardens influenced European garden tradition and illustration.

When we moved to Helena, wondering how long that first, non-tenure track professorship at Carroll would last, we joked about how, if it didn’t, we’d hang out a shingle for public, street-side philosophy. We remain in awe, and grateful, that under Marisa’s guidance and extraordinary energy Merlin has succeeded so mightily in that improbable enterprise. — Hetti & Barry

Barry Ferst grew up on Chicago’s south side and earned a doctorate in philosophy from Tulane University. He began teaching at Carroll College in 1980 and leaves there a legacy including the Honors Scholars program, a thriving philosophy department, an established speakers series, and a collection of unique community-campus programs that integrated thought, science and the arts around timely issues. He often encounters one of his 9,000 or so former students when travelling or on the streets of Helena, where he exchanged his classroom for a curiosity shop filled with his own 3D collages and a universe of the most unusual and bizarre curios internet suppliers and second-hand shops have to offer.
In addition to making his visual art he writes short stories that explore fantastical alternate realities peopled with idiosyncratic human characters. And an approximately fifteen-year quest to document all the extant Roman stone sarcophaguses led him from Moscow to Marrakech and from Copenhagen to Cairo, photographing in museums and along ancient decumani. The resulting volume is the definitive documentation of that sculptural body.
Barry’s philosophical concentrations include ancient philosophy, aesthetics, and philosophy of mind. His popular culture interests include American religious history, fashion and evolving lifestyles. All appear in his several publications.

Philosophy Think & Drink
2024-08-08 19:00 - 21:00 | Reeder’s Alley Conference Center, 101 Reeder's Alley, Helena, MT, 59601, United States
Fun Gatherings that Stimulate the Mind!
Our Philosophy Think & Drinks are casual, community-oriented gatherings that are intellectually stimulating and fun. You don’t need a background in philosophy to enjoy & participate. An open mind & desire to engage in thoughtful dialogue (whether from a listening or contribution standpoint) is all that’s needed! For those who love philosophy but prefer not to partake in the libations side of things, don’t let that stop you from participating in the fun. We emphasize the think over the drink!
When
2nd Thursday of every month from 7pm-9pm
Where
Reeder’s Alley — If the weather is conducive, we meet outdoors in the pavilion. If it’s cantankerous, we meet indoors in the Conference Center.
Other
Light snacks provided. BYOB.

How Do They Work?
Step into the dojo! Our Think & Drinks are monthly gatherings that consist of a “meeting of minds” over libations. After nabbing goodies and seats, getting acquainted & settling in…the eve begins.

No topics are off-limit; no questions are too broad, narrow, abstract, or concrete. Questions are posed by participants in a “round-robin” fashion, clarified, and then voted upon collectively.
Once our “avenue of philosophical pursuit” is in place, we’re ready to dive into a fun night of facilitated philosophical discussion.
