Philosophy for All Fargo-Moorhead celebrated its 20th year in 2024! In addition to this milestone, we are pleased to announce that George Connell has joined our steering committee. George has been active as a presenter for the group for many years. We look forward to his increased participation in the development of programming and the facilitation of meetings.
Founder Mark Chekola is presented with a plaque in 2020 showing the group’s appreciation for 16 years of dedication!
Philosophy for All Fargo-Moorhead held its first official meeting in January of 2004 at the Plains Art Museum in Fargo, ND, USA. The main goal was to bring non-academic philosophical discussion to a broader audience. Read A Rendezvous in Istanbul and the Origin of Philosophy for All to learn more.
Most meetings have a specific topic presented by someone with some expertise on the subject, but attendees are welcome no matter their level of subject knowledge or experience with philosophy. Often our presenters are professors of Philosophy at local universities, but non-professional philosophers or subject experts are welcome presenters as well. We strive to include exhibitions from the museum as part of our discussions when possible. At times we schedule a “Socrates Café” where the people present choose a topic of interest and then engage in discussion of it.
Committee
George Connell
Co-Facilitator
George received the PhD in Philosophy from Vanderbilt University in 1984. After teaching two years at North Carolina Wesleyan College, he moved to Concordia College in 1986. He was recruited to Concordia to continue a tradition of interest in the Danish philosopher and theologian, Soren Kierkegaard, that reaches back into the 1940s when Reidar Thomte (Mark Chekola’s teacher) founded Concordia’s philosophy department. He served as Concordia’s Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences from 2020-2022. After 38 years at the college, George is retiring from Concordia in 2024, after which he plans continue work on philosophy of home and homelessness.
Paul Sanford
Co-Facilitator, Communications
Paul was introduced to philosophy at MSUM in an Intro to Logic class that featured popular cartoons illustrating 10 logical fallacies. This approach of making philosophy accessible and fun was attractive, and so he pursued a Minor in Philosophy. Friday colloquiums in the department were a highlight of the week, and so the Philosophy For All format was a natural fit, Paul found, in 2011. Paul majored in Political Science and Criminal Justice, and was influenced strongly by John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice. He has presented on Rawls, The Golden Proportion, and The Good Place.
David Gaboury
Co-Facilitator, Administrator
Dave became a regular attendee at Philosophy For All Fargo-Moorhead in 2012 after retiring from a long career at Great Plains Software and Microsoft where he served as a Software Engineer and Project Manager. Dave’s interest in philosophy started in his college days at Minnesota State University, Moorhead. A chance encounter with a philosophy class sparked the interest and further classes from Mark Chekola ignited the passion that led him to add a Philosophy minor to his studies. Dave is keenly interested in ethics and the Philosophy of Religion.
Bruce Ringstrom
Special Projects
Bruce majored in philosophy and history at MSUM. As a student of Mark Chekola’s, Bruce was privileged to be an attendee of Philosophy for All meetings from the beginning in 2004. Following law school and a number of years practicing law elsewhere, Bruce returned to the Fargo/Moorhead area in 2013. Since then, Bruce has been a regular attendee and occasional presenter. Bruce’s philosophical interests include the philosophy of law, the philosophy of evidence, and stoicism.
Richard Hoberg
Co-Facilitator (on assignment)
Richard studied philosophy at Jamestown College and Colorado State University. He attended his first Philosophy for All meeting back in 2007. Since then, he studied in graduate programs in philosophy and education at Colorado State University. When Richard moved back to North Dakota in 2016 to take a teaching position at North High School, he became a regular member of the group and has presented on the philosophy of education. Richard’s philosophical interests include epistemology and metaphysics, philosophy of education, and pragmatism.
Dr. Mark Chekola
Founder
Mark Received his Doctorate of Philosophy from the University of Michigan in 1974, and is a Professor Emeritus, Minnesota State University Moorhead. His tale of the origins of Philosophy for All Fargo-Moorhead can be found below.
A Rendezvous in Istanbul and the Origin of Philosophy for All (by Mark Chekola)
In August 2003 I attended the World Congress of Philosophy in Istanbul, Turkey. On the van from the airport I met Anja Steinbauer, founder of Philosophy for All London, and Rick Lewis, founder and publisher of Philosophy Now magazine. As luck would have it, we got off at the same hotel. We made plans to meet for breakfast the next morning. Our conversation focused on the importance of making philosophy available to people interested in it outside of academic institutions. One of the sessions in the World Congress was titled Non-Academic Philosophy, and Steinbauer and Lewis were among the presenters in that session.
I had been intrigued by news of Philosophy Cafés which were occurring in Paris, and thought it would be nice to have something like that in Fargo-Moorhead. While in Istanbul Anja, Rick and I had a number of discussions about the idea of my starting a group at home. The idea of calling it Philosophy for All Fargo-Moorhead came up, in effect an American chapter of Philosophy for All, with the blessing of Anja Steinbauer. We discussed the possibility of my visiting them in London the following February during a planned visit at the World Database of Happiness at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. After I returned home I invited some people to meet several times during the fall of 2003 to get such a group going. One person in the group arranged for us to use a room at the Plains Art Museum, and we had our first official meeting in January, 2004.
During my February visit with Anja and Rick at their home in London I got to spend an afternoon in the headquarters of Philosophy Now magazine in their basement, observing how the magazine gets put together. And I attended a meeting of Philosophy for All London in the function room of a pub in London. At dinner afterwards with a number of people some of them expressed excitement about the start of our American chapter of Philosophy for All, even raising the idea of a group of London PFAers making a trip to attend one of our meetings to cheer us on.
I am grateful for the good fortune of the auspicious rendezvous in Istanbul; grateful for the advice and support of Anja Steinbauer and Rick Lewis; grateful for the teachers at the college and universities and others in the community who have shared ideas with us in their presentations; grateful for all of you participants in Philosophy for All during these fifteen years. And I am grateful that the new Philosophy for All Steering Committee will be leading Philosophy for All into the future. I will continue to be involved with Philosophy for All, attending meetings, occasionally leading a meeting, and working with the steering committee when needed. An excellent variety of programs for 2020 has already been planned. Mark Chekola, December 2019
Philosophy for All Fargo-Moorhead 