St Thomas More Trust, the Institute of Catholic Culture, and Philosophy 101

Introduction

The St Thomas More Trust is bringing to life a new initiative for 2026. We plan to support a cohort of people to work through an introductory Philosophy course together – but at a pace and in a timeframe that suits people’s individual circumstances. Our "target market" is people with full-time vocations (work, study, raising children etc) but who can commit a couple of hours per week to study the liberal arts. A key part of the idea is that they would be doing this in small groups, fostering accountability, discussion, and better learning.

Our role in this at the St Thomas More Trust is to coordinate it and make access to the necessary resources as easy and inexpensive as possible – total cost is only a few dollars. The key resource is the Institute of Catholic Culture’s PHILOSOPHY 101 course.

The Institute of Catholic Culture (ICC) is an American adult educational organisation with similar goals to the St Thomas More Trust. Its mission is to offer educational programs structured upon the classical liberal arts and to offer opportunities in which authentic Catholic culture is experienced and lived. One of the programs offered by ICC is PHIL101. Here is the course description:

This course is an introduction to philosophy especially through reading dialogues of Plato. Since Socrates and Plato stand as foundational pillars of the great Western tradition of philosophy, in reading these dialogues we have occasion to consider the major areas of philosophical thought and many of the main questions of the greatest thinkers through the ages. The course will emphasize first principles of reasoning, foundational concepts, docility to reality and to the wise, and a philosophical habit of mind. Pre-Socratic thinkers will also be treated.

How it works

The intention is for people to study the course individually, doing one lesson per week at whatever time suits, but to do so as part of a small group that is in turn part of a wider cohort, all proceeding at a similar pace. Participants will form small groups that can meet together after every three lessons, ideally over a meal, to discuss what is being learned. The small group part of this program is very important, for learning together through shared discussion and exchange of ideas, for accountability in making steady progress, and for building community.

 Time commitment is roughly two hours per week. The course is self-paced within the week, and is provided for free by the ICC. It is a high-quality path to study liberal arts in a structured way with little stress, close to zero cost, and minimal impact on normal life. The first cohort will begin in May 2026, and will finish the course in November. Once or twice over the course of the year we hope try to invite the whole cohort together for a larger event. This is university-level content, with the main difference being that it is virtually free and that there are no written assignments, tutorials, etc, just a short multi-choice quiz after each lesson, plus a short final exam. This makes the study load far more manageable than traditional alternatives for people with other commitments. 

Readings and Lectures

The ICC Philosophy 101 course content consists of readings from Plato – mostly dialogues of Socrates – and accompanying lectures from Dr John Cuddeback. You should expect to spend about 30-60 minutes per lesson on the readings, and about an hour per lesson on the lectures. A typical lesson has a reading, a lecture, and a 10-question multi-choice quiz. Readings are done in whatever way best suits you – text, audio, or video. Lectures and quizzes are provided on the ICC website.

(a)   Readings

Dr Cuddeback uses a particular hardcopy edition of Plato, but the readings are also widely available for free online (e.g. at Project Gutenberg) in multiple formats. If you want a good ebook copy, we recommend this one from Amazon: Delphi Complete Works of Plato (Illustrated). This costs about NZ$3.50 and includes useful introductory material for all of the dialogs. If you don't like Kindle, we can convert this to ePub format for you once you have purchased it, if that would be better for you. Otherwise it is easy to read on an Amazon Kindle device, or in the free Kindle app which can be installed on your phone or PC.

Instead of reading the texts, you can watch/listen online - e.g. this Youtube playlist has them in a very digestible form, and they are widely available on Spotify and other platforms. To make things even easier we have turned all the readings into mp3 files that you can copy on to your phone and then listen to using a folder-based audio player app, ideally one that lets you vary the playback speed. This means you can listen while working, driving, etc, without using mobile data and without requiring a Youtube Premium subscription. For Android phones, we recommend installing Smart Audiobook Player, which costs about NZ$3.50 to buy a permanent licence. We will have all the Readings mp3s for the current course accessible from the STMT website. With these audio files and an app, you can just listen as you drive, work out, do chores, or whatever.

(b)   Lectures

The lectures are in video format accessed from the ICC website. ICC membership and course registration are free. Study Guides

The St Thomas More Trust has drafted a Study Guide for the course. This is designed to help people participate in small group discussion, especially small group leaders who might not feel comfortable in that role if they don't already have a background in philosophy – which will probably be most of us.

The guide includes each lesson's reflection questions from Dr Cuddeback, as well as additional discussion questions to help prompt thoughtful conversations. The Study Guide is purely optional – many groups will have plenty to talk about without needing any prompting. But it is there in case some groups could find it helpful.

I’m Keen – Now What?

Here are the steps to get started:

1.      Contact your friends and form a group. Decide on a group name. If you don't know anyone to form a group with, we can assign you to a group. But this will work best if you find some people you know who are keen to do this together. The ideal group size is 5-6 people, but there is no fixed requirement, apart from that it must be greater than one!

2.      Register with STMT via the event page. Note that we are asking for a $10 optional donation at registration. This is to enable us to give a collective donation to ICC, plus cover costs of coordinating the course, but if cost is an issue, don’t let it stop you; the donation is optional.

3.      Register with ICC through their website to become an ICC member.

4.      Then, still at the ICC website, register for the PHIL101 course. Make sure you choose the “Certificate” track.

5.      Make sure everyone in your group has gone through all the registration steps.

6.      Official start date is the week beginning Monday 4 May. We’ll share a course calendar on the STMT website to help your group with planning, but it is up to you to keep each other accountable and to make sure you get together every fourth week to discuss what you are learning.

If you have any questions, feel free to get in touch with our course coordinator, Dean, at dean.mischewski@gmail.com.