Minnesota college students mull life's big questions at 'Philosophy Camp'

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The students trekked toward the sunset, feeling the strange crunch of prairie grass recently shorn by a burn. They waved off June bugs trailing them as they talked neuroscience and drunkenness. A farm kitten, too, tagged along, nudging their ankles when they paused to snap photos of the sky.

?The cat! He came.?

It was an impromptu hike, late on a Sunday, but in a way, those University of Minnesota students were attending class.

For one month each summer, students, instructors and a few curious folks turn a farm and retreat center in southwest Minnesota into a philosophy classroom. Or a ?community on the prairie,? as the syllabus puts it.

Together, they discuss life. What is a good life? How might a person create such a life?

Philosophy professors ask such questions in lecture halls. But there?s something special about discussing Plato on the prairie. Cooking Sunday dinner from scratch with classmates. Meditating beneath the stars.

The course?s title ? ?Lives Worth Living: Questions of Self, Vocation and Community? ? refers to Plato?s notion that ?the unexamined life is not worth living.? But its nickname ? Philosophy Camp ? hints at a residential experience more important than any text.

People are caring here, ?and I think that?s a product of living in the same space,? said Ted Tiffany, a senior and course apprentice who first came to camp as a sophomore. ?Even if you see the same person every day for a semester, you?re just with them for an hour at a time. Here, you cook a meal with someone, you do the dishes together, you go for a walk.?

A bit of magic

The instructors attribute part of the course?s power to the place: the Shalom Hill Farm, two dirt roads away from a major thoroughfare and 12 miles north of Windom, Minn. Nestled into the side of an uncommon hill, its buildings let light into unexpected places and lead to patios with prairie views.

Source: http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/214794541.html

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