The combo that started it all, and some background

So, the idea for Philosophy the Gathering came from the idea that one of the greatest moments in the history of philosophy could be quite easily replicated in the world of Magic. The quote from which we got our inspiration:

"I openly confess, the suggestion of David Hume was the very thing, which many years ago first interrupted my dogmatic slumber, and gave my investigations in the field of speculative philosophy quite a new direction."

-Immanuel Kant, 'Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics'

Kant basically felt that reading Hume's treatise awoke him from the slumber of dogmatic rationalism, especially in regards to causation. So without further ado:

You can see how this works-- I summon Kant, ready to both 1) use my bounce ability to return your false judgments to your hand and 2) impose the categorical imperative, turning whatever targeted effect you wanted into a spell effecting the whole board; you, worried that I could get out of hand, cast Dogmatic Slumber on Kant, thus rendering his philosophical project useless. Luckily, however, I packed some copies of Hume in my sideboard and you just got a massive tempo loss.

As for the general background of the game, we have tried to assign the color wheel to philosophical schools. It's pretty rough.

White: Scholastics (With some Greek elements); the major abilities here are tap abilities that give bonuses to other creatures. They're praying.

Blue: Oh, those rationalists. They bounce your permanents, counter your spells, and tap you down with lots of good controlling magic. Logic sucks, huh?

Black: Skeptics. Lots of milling, as it represents your thoughts and knowledge going down the tube. Lots of little evasion-y guys as well. Lots of paradoxes that kill creatures.

Red: Anarchists, Marxists, and some random other stuff. Lots of land and artifact destruction happens when you need to take over the means of production. Some direct damage, but it's hard to come up with philosophical excuses for burn.

Green: Buddhists, other Eastern influences, and some other stuff. There are some Greeks here. The main Buddhist mechanic is that when they die, they come back as creature tokens. Sort of like the penumbra creatures from Apocalypse, but cooler because they're monks.

Ok, that's a basic breakdown of how the set will work, along with our inspiration!

Philosophy the Gathering

A wise man once said, "The unexamined life is not worth living." A wiser man once said, "Well, I hate [girls], and I love playing Magic, so that worked out well for me!"

Here at Philosophy the Gathering, our purpose--our telos, if you will--is to combine those two sentiments.

Thus, we present Philosophy: The Gathering's first few publicly released cards.

NOTE: This is a blatant copyright infringement of Magic: The Gathering, which is run by Wizards of the Coast. However, since we don't plan to sell this product or otherwise make any money from it, and since so much of our money has enriched the coffers of that great gaming corporation, we really hope we don't get sued.

So without further ado, we present:

We hope that these first few cards inspire those philosophers (and those gatherers!) out there to hit us with some feedback. We're working on more cards as we speak, and the eventual goal is to create a full 248 card set, which would help teach the history of philosophy. Check backsoon to see the 3-card combo that inspired the set!