Ediciones
de la Revista Peruana de Filosofia Aplicada
(AERPFA)
Rationalist,
Humanist and Applied Philosophy
As a Philosophy teacher
I have ever had a great need that my students learnt about alternatives
to supernatural and paranormal beliefs. And that because I was not
taught critical thinking when I was a school and college student.
I was raised as a Catholic child and then when I read the Bible
for a first time I became an Evangelic in my teens; but I was ever
looking for new information in TV documentaries and academic books
and periodicals.
For those reasons and because of
a lack of a critical medium in my country interested in an alive,
humanist and rationalist philosophy I launched the "Peruvian
Journal of Applied Philosophy" (RPFA) in 1994.
Almost inmediatly RPFA´s Editions
(ERPFA) were born with 2 books; one on Erich Fromm´s Humanism
and another on the (Non)Existence of God by me. And then in 1995
our association was founded formally as AERPFA. It has as main target
young college students. In that way 5 of 7 AERPFA´s lectures
were done in Campuses´auditoriums (on Philosophy of Religion,
Social Philosophy, Bioethics, The Mission of University, Humanism,
Ethics and Moral, Applied Philosophy).
Publications
To date we have printed 15 issues
of five periodicals -RPFA, EUPRAXOPHIA (Wisdom for a good life),
NEO-SKEPSIS (New Skepticism) plus PERUVIAN & IBERO-AMERICAN
BIOETHICS and some papers and articles are on-line.
We are calling for contributions
for 2 new issues:
-'Problems of Democracy & Politics', and,
-'Teaching to Philosophizing'.
We have already launched our book
number 20 in 2002, 'Who was Jesus?', all of them in Spanish
but with some on-line information in English. Among our Humanist
authors we have also: Finngeir Hiorth, Paul Kurtz, Héctor
Avalos and Anthony Flew. Our first book for children is Chris Brockman´s
' What about Gods?', -a Prometheus book.
Also AERPFA is launching a video-series:
'Logos: The Great Questions of Man', a philosophical series
with the support of the IHEU. Ready is Chapter
1: 'Does God Exist?' based on 2 of our books, one with
the same name Logos and another one on God´s existence.
Two specialized branches
In order to reach to more people, since 1998 we have helped to launch
two specialized groups:
*Peruvian Humanist Non-Religious Movement (MPHA), and:
*Peruvian Center for Investigation of Paranormal, Pseudo-Science
and Irrationality (CIPSI-PERU).
MPHA has organized about 20 public debates with believers
and lecturers on diverse topics -both metaphysical and ethical-practical-
from 1999 and launched 2 manifestos. In October 2002, MPHA´s
monthly lecture had more than 1000 attendeés -most of them
pre-college students.
CIPSI-PERU has as its
main Skeptical work to watch media reports on paranormal claims
in order to send them criticisms and explanations of their reported
phenomena, and to show scientific documentary videos to young students.
The most important Peruvian newspaper 'El Comercio' (The
Commerce), has published some explanatory letters of CIPSI-PERU.
And in one episode of the TV show 'Joy at Noon' on April
1 2002, we were invited to give a skeptical view on telepathy and
other paranormal claims like psychic surgery.
Because of our above work we have
been elected to be part of Center for Inquiry International. So
since 2001 we have a Center for Inquiry-Peru and soon
with their own web page.
Contact
AERPFA
Website:
geocities.com/rpfa
E-mail:
rpfa@yahoo.com
Address: El Corregidor 318,
Rimac, Lima 25, PERU
MPHA
Website:
geocities.com/mphaperu
E-mail:
mphaperu@yahoo.com
CIPSI-PERU
Website: geocities.com/cipsiperu
E-mail: cipsiperu@yahoo.com
Address: Casanova 430, 2do. piso, Lima 14, PERU
CFI-PERU
E-mail: mapymc@yahoo.com
Address: Casanova 430, 2do. piso, Lima 14, PERU
@Written by Lic.
Manuel Abraham Paz y Miño, president of AERPFA.
Involvement in IHEYO
AERPFA is a member organisation of IHEU (IHEYO is the youth section
of IHEU).
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