A time-sensitive, history-pondering Philosophers’ Café, starring Lowery

What if the Philosophers’ Café had never been inaugurated in Green Bay? Why do we think of history in counterfactual terms? Why does the prospect of traveling back in time to change the present so fixate our interests? Why do we obsess over past mistakes and wonder how we might have avoided them? Historian Vince Lowery, assistant professor of Humanistic Studies, posits that history is much more than the study of past facts. History, he suggests, pushes us to consider cause and effect and the complex motivations and actions of historical and current actors. What is our relationship with history, and what is its ultimate purpose? Join the Philosophers’ Café crowd this Thursday (May 8) at Kavarna, 143 N. Broadway, from 7 to 8:30 p.m. to tackle these weighty issues. (Adds host and philosophy faculty member Christopher Martin, “Bring a friend with whom you can later question the authenticity of your recollections of this year’s final Philosophers’ Café discussion.”)