Bucks’ Newtown Socratic Society is attempting to build club funds and take on new members as the end of the fall semester approaches.

“We need a budget for food and drinks, possibly posters,” said Mark Cobb, professor of philosophy and founder of the club at Bucks. “Of course we’d love to go on a trip, but where would we go?”

The club has existed for multiple years, with the number of members shifting depending upon the circumstances. “At some points, it had no members. It had twenty people at one point,” club member Brian Deley said.

The most recent meeting of the club, which gathers in the lobby of Founders’ Hall, was host to a discussion that touched on scientific, geographical, and religious topics.

Arguments raged over whether computer viruses were a form of life. Hunter Curry argued against the notion, saying, “A computer virus is a self-replicating process, but isn’t considered life.”

Nick Benedetto begged to differ, “Viruses aren’t alive, but computers may be. They fulfill all the philosophical requirements.”

Perhaps more controversially, club members debated organized religion. “Religion is a background ideology today,” Benedetto said. “It is going away because people just want to listen to all arguments these days.”

“Religion – organized religion – predates government, but it gets taken over and manipulated by governments,” Deley responded.

Many members of the club seem to be scholars. “We’ve discussed Nietzsche and Socrates. And we plan to discuss more casual stuff in the future,” Cobb said.

Usually, however, the club is relatively low-key. “The class is pretty communal. We go off on tangents about just random stuff,” Curry said. Many jokes are exchanged.

Deley shared that he had recently found an encyclopedia of philosophy in the library. “That was the end of my day. I couldn’t stop reading. I was ten minutes late to class. It was actually quite recent – from the nineties or the early 2000s.”

“That’s two decades old,” Curry replied. “For philosophy, something from the nineties is from ten minutes ago!” Cobb joked.