What we’re about
The Chicago Philosophy Meetup is a community of groups created by and for people interested in engagements with philosophy and the history of such engagements. Our members have a wide variety of backgrounds besides philosophy, including literature, law, physics, theology, music, and more.
We host events suggested by individual members and coordinated by volunteer organizers and offer opportunities for discussion with others who share these interests. If you have an idea for a topic you'd like to discuss, especially if you are from an historically underrepresented group in academic philosophy, let us work with you to make it happen.
Whether you're new to philosophy and looking to get started, or have been doing philosophy for some time and want to dig a bit deeper, we invite you to check us out.
We have basic expectations for how we talk to each other, so:
DO...
Listen to others
Ask for clarification
Get to know people
Help other voices to be heard
Work towards understanding each other
Practice moving past your assumptions about others
DON'T...
Limit others’ performance of items on the DO list
The Chicago Philosophy Meetup opposes any force of exclusion, discrimination, and/or harassment present in its community. Such forces include, but are not limited to, racism, transphobia, misogyny, and antisemitism. The Chicago Philosophy Meetup seeks to be inclusive because only in this way can we fulfill the DOs list above. We are here to help! If you have concerns, questions about a meeting, or need assistance (e.g. accessibility), please contact either the organizers or the event host for the meeting directly.
"Philosophy is not a theory but an activity."
-- from "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus," Wittgenstein
Discourse cheers us to companionable
reflection. Such reflection neither
parades polemical opinions nor does it
tolerate complaisant agreement. The sail
of thinking keeps trimmed hard to the
wind of the matter.
-- from "On the Experience of Thinking," Heidegger
Check out our calendar
Upcoming events (4+)
See all- Wittgenstein: Philosophical Investigations (Week 9)Oak Park Public Library - Main Library, Oak Park, IL
We are going to read and discuss the later work of Ludwig Wittgenstein, with an eye to understanding the method he seeks to exemplify in his work.
Wittgenstein refers to his investigations as "grammatical" ones, but it is not clear what he could mean by this. His remarks are not limited to this or that language, not subject to empirical confirmation or refutation, they do not hold in virtue of any semantic stipulation, nor do they purport to describe any thing.
Throughout the series, we will consider some of the most contentious sequences of sections — including those on naming, ostensive definition, following a rule, the (so-called) "private language argument", first-person ascription, the relations between meaning and use, inner and outer, criteria and mental states.
Join us every other Thursday at 6!
**Reading schedule:
- General discussion of Wittgenstein's thought
- Philosophical Investigations, Part 1: §§1–43
- Part 1: §§44–88
- §§89–107
- §§108–133
- §§134–184
- §§185–201
- §§202–242
- §§243–281
- §§282–309
- §§310–387
- §§388–428
- §§429–502
- §§503–570
- §§571–632
- §§633–693
- Philosophical Investigations, Part 2: §§I–X
- Part 2: §§XI–"Schubert's face" (pg. 215 in 3rd edition)
- Remainder of §§XI–XIV
Purchase a copy on Amazon (3rd ed.), or at the Book Table (4th ed.)
- Kierkegaard: Works of Love (Live Reading)Link visible for attendees
Online meeting link: https://meet.jit.si/Kierkegaard-Friday-CPM
We'll start reading from page 67 (Danish page 69).
Works of Love; Some Christian Deliberations in the Form of Discourses is a collection of reflections and discourses that reflect on love from various perspectives and with respect to various occasions. The theme of love is a frequent topic in Kierkegaard's work, so this should provide us an occasion to reflect on much of Kierkegaard's earlier works.
Amazon Link: https://www.amazon.com/Works-Love-Kierkegaards-Writings-Vol/dp/0691059160/
PDF: https://annas-archive.org/md5/93afa222d5c3cd524e68739aef47d444
On the Friday Meetings:
The Friday meetings started on January 1st, 2016 with an initial goal of reading through the first half of Kierkegaard's works. Due to continued interest, we have decided to return to previous works for review, study more background texts, and continue beyond the first half of Kierkegaard's writing.
Works read so far in the series:
- The Concept of Irony, With Continual Reference to Socrates (Kierkegaard)
- Notes of Schelling's Berlin Lectures (Kierkegaard)
- Either/Or (Victor Eremita, et al.)
- Two Upbuilding Discourses (Kierkegaard)
- Fear and Trembling (Johannes de Silentio)
- Repetition (Constantin Constantius)
- Three Upbuilding Discourses (Kierkegaard)
- Four Upbuilding Discourses (Kierkegaard)
- Two Upbuilding Discourses (Kierkegaard)
- Three Upbuilding Discourses (Kierkegaard)
- Philosophical Fragments (Johannes Climacus)
- Johannes Climacus or De Omnibus Dubitandum Est (Johannes Climacus)
- Concept of Anxiety (Vigilius Haufniensis)
- Prefaces (Nicolaus Notabene)
- Writing Sampler (A.B.C.D.E.F. Godthaab)
- Four Upbuilding Discourses (Kierkegaard)
- Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions (Kierkegaard)
- Stages on Life's Way (Hilarious Bookbinder)
- Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Fragments (Johannes Climacus)
- The Sickness Unto Death (Anti-Climacus)
Works read for background:
- The First Love (Scribe)
- The Berlin Lectures (Schelling)
- Clavigo (Goethe)
- Faust Part I (Goethe)
- Antigone (Sophocles)
- Axioms (Lessing)
- The Little Mermaid (Anderson)
Works read inspired (at least in part) by Kierkegaard
- The Escape from God (Tillich)
- You Are Accepted (Tillich)