Our monthly support-networking event for founders, entrepreneurs, investors, advisors, join us at VenturePad for networking and peer support through Ask and Offer, introductions, presentations by expert speakers, founders who present their value prop, business model, investor pitch decks. Get ideas, inspiration, connections. You are NOT alone!

To register for this free event and for us to plan for food, seating, etc:

Marin Philosophical Society

Date/time: Monday, 10/20/25: 11:30-1:30pm,

Location: @VenturePad: 1020 B St, between 4th & 5th street, across from the Marriott Hotel

Speaker: Dr Patrick Downey, St. Mary’s College

Three Quarrels of Western Civilization   

Western civilization has been shaped by three defining quarrels that continue to echo through our culture. The first, between Poets and Philosophers, asks whether imagination or reason best explains our world. The second, between Athens and Jerusalem, that pits rational inquiry against moral revelation and the third, framed by Jonathan Swift, as the quarrel of Ancients and Moderns, that weighs tradition against progress. 

Far from being destructive, these quarrels have given Western life dynamism – like a long marriage, full of tension but also renewal. The pregnant question is whether the underlying narratives play out as tragedy, with downfall and loss, or as comedy, with reconciliation and surprising joy. Dr Patrick Downey is Professor and Philosophy Chair at Saint Mary’s College. 

We’ve all felt it: a passage in fiction, a moment on stage, a scene in a movie that generates a deeply felt truth. It’s not literally true - but something in it feels powerfully true: emotionally, morally, even rationally. Why do stories have the power to resonate a form of intuitive truth that can feel so real and profound?

Christopher Booker observed that stories - ancient and modern, sacred and secular - generalize to just seven recurring plot-lines. Perhaps these are not just patterns in storytelling, but reflections of how we are wired to understand meaning itself: unconscious frameworks that shape what we recognize as emotionally and morally true.

Immanuel Kant proposed that we never experience reality “as it is,” but only as it appears through the lens of our mind’s innate structures. Perhaps narrative structure works the same way. Booker’s seven plots may be more than storytelling patterns - they may be the deep grammar through which our minds organize meaning and recognize truth, even in fiction.

Frank Jamieson serves as the speaker chair and steering committee member of Marin Philosophy Society. He is also a board member of Marin Commonwealth Club World Affairs. He also recently founded Marin Non-Partisanship Forum to explore urgent political issues in an objective fact-based non-partisan manner.

As a member of the Venture Pad community, Chris Yalonis invites you to a special networking and book reception on September 13, 1:00 at the Corte Madera bookstore.

Ashwin Gulati has written an amazing book on the start-up journey, the ups and downs, heartache and sweet winnings of 100 startups that Ashwin has been involved in. This is the beginning of an ongoing series of networking events and thought leader talks that Venturepad will be running each month.

These events are geared to founders, start-up management teams, advisors and funders. He’s bringing to bear his 35 years working with startups in the North Bay as co-and sole founder, advisor and investor. Hope to see you there at the event!