The Chicago Philosophy Meetup

October 12 - We are reading the middle of chapter 7 of NE VII, which elaborates on self-control and steadfastness. Self-control (whether having or lacking) and steadfastness (whether holding or losing) have to do with, respectively, pleasure and pain. In proportion, how are they compared and contrasted with the virtue moderation and its twin vices of being appetite-lacking and being gluttonous-and-lecherous?
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For example, when a person has acknowledged firmly to himself that he should no longer spend time on one-night-stand hookups but who in the next evening does the very thing affirmed to avoid, then he is the person who has a weakness of will--or lacking self-control--according to Aristotle.
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If that is a lack of self-control, under what scenario should we identify someone as being soft-pampered {malakia}? And under what scenario is someone to be considered as being endurant-steadfast {karteria}? Let's follow Aristotle's train of thought.
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We will read multiple translations starting at 1150a16.
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We are live-reading and discussing Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, book VII, which is about troubleshooting the virtues.
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The prerequisite to this book is our answering for ourselves these questions from the prior books, to which we will briefly review:
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1. What is a virtue of character {ēthikē aretē}?
2. How does one come to acquire it? (E.g. [Aristotle’s], ambition, bravery, gentlemanliness, generosity, candor, …)
3. From a first-person perspective in being virtuous, how does one feel and what does one see (differently, discursively) in a given situation of everyday living?
4. From a third-person perspective, how is the virtuous person (of a specific virtue) to be characterized?
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The project's cloud drive is here, at which you'll find the reading texts, notes, and slideshows.

October 14 - We are wrapping up chapter 14 and the entirety of the present treatise On Interpretation. Chapter 14 is roughly about knowing the knowable through belief. Up until now, Aristotle has been focusing on the relationship between the knowing and the things that are known. Now, he turns his attention finally toward the relationship between the knowing and the beliefs we craft so as to lasso-grasp the things that are known. The issue is, which belief is more opposite to the belief "A is B"; is it "A isn't B" or is it "A is C" (in which B and C are contrary concepts)? The bookmark is set at Bekker line 24b1--which is the 7th paragraph in Ackrill's translation.
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The chapter review most relevant to where we are in chapter 14 is chapter 10. Here is my review of it. - § 10 -
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After this meeting, we will start a brand new treatise in the Organon : Aristotle's Topics. The translation for Book I has been selected. It will be Robin Smith's Topics (Oxford University Press, 1997). On the 21st, we will read and discuss Smith's "Introduction."
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Join the meeting, keep pen and notepad at the ready, and participate.
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Organon means "instrument," as in, instrument for thought and speech. The term was given by ancient commentators to a group of Aristotle's treatises comprising his logical works.

Organon
|-- Categories ---- 2023.02.28
|-- On Interpretation ---- 2023.12.12
|-- Topics ---- 2025.10.21
|-- On Sophistical Refutations
|-- Rhetoric*
|-- Prior Analytics
|-- Posterior Analytics

(* Robin Smith, author of SEP's 2022 entry "Aristotle's Logic," argues that Rhetoric should be part of the Organon.)

Whenever we do any human thing, we can either do it well or do it poorly. With instruments, we can do things either better, faster, and more; or worse, slower, and less. That is, with instruments they either augment or diminish our doings.

Do thinking and speaking (and writing and listening) require instruments? Yes. We need physical instruments like microphones, megaphones, pens, papers, computers. But we also need mental instruments: grammar, vocabulary words, evidence-gathering techniques, big-picture integration methods, persuasion strategies. Thinking while sitting meditatively all day in a lotus position doesn't require much instrumentation of any kind, but thinking and speaking well in the sense of project-planning, problem-solving, negotiating, arguing, deliberating--that is, the active engagements in the world (whether romantic, social, commercial, or political)--do require well-honed mental instruments. That's the Organon in a nutshell.

Are you an up-and-coming human being, a doer, go-getter, achiever, or at least you're choosing to become one? You need to wield the Organon.

Join us.

Meeting link: https://meet.jit.si/CPM-Kant-Wednesdays

We'll be covering Book I - Analytic of the Beautiful (§1 - 23) (89 - 127, 38 pages)

Note: Meetings focus on developing a common language and fostering friendship through the study of Kant. The host will provide an interpretation of Kant; other interpretations will not be discussed until later in the meeting. Additional interpretations, topics, and questions can be addressed through the Jitsi chat feature.

No prior knowledge of Kant is necessary!

We continue with Kant's Critiques, now onto the third which examines the beautiful, sublime, and teleology as occasions where our senses are originally related to our understanding (judgment of taste), as well as how the understanding originally relates to reason (teleological judgment).

PDF: https://annas-archive.org/md5/b697b96b3dd98970c44942d6686e3a20

Amazon Link:
https://www.amazon.com/Critique-Power-Judgment-Cambridge-Immanuel/dp/0521348927/ref=sr_1_1

(Note - page numbers are from Cambridge edition)

Week 1:
First Introduction (3 - 51, 48 pages)
(NOTE: this is not an editor or translator introduction, it is by Kant. It is sometimes at the end of the book.)

Week 2:
Preface and Introduction (55 - 83, 28 pages)

Week 3:
Book I - Analytic of the Beautiful (§1 - 23) (89 - 127, 38 pages)

Week 4:
Book II - Analytic of the Sublime (§23 - 30) (128 - 159, 31 pages)

Week 5:
§30 - 43 (160 - 182, 22 pages)

Week 6:
§43 - 55 (182 - 212, 30 pages)

Week 7:
The Dialectic of the Aesthetic Power of Judgment (§55 - 61) (213 - 230, 17 pages)

Week 8:
Analytic of the Teleological Power of Judgment (§61 - 69) (233 - 255, 22 pages)

Week 9:
Dialectic of the Teleological Power of Judgment (§69 - 79) (257 - 284, 27 pages)

Week 10:
Appendix §79 - 87 (285 - 313, 28 pages)

Week 11:
Appendix §87 - END (313 - 346, 33 pages)

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