What we’re about
*** PLEASE NOTE: due to illness, we unfortunately have to cancel the November 22 session on pre-modern African philosophy. We will reschedule it for a later date. Apologies for any inconvenience. Thank you, Jeff and the HPBC organizers***
In 2025, the History of Philosophy Book Club will continue to study both canonical Western texts as well as philosophy from other cultures. Since 2022 we have explored Hindu, Buddhist, Daoist, Arabic, and classical Chinese philosophy alongside the traditional Western canon. This is an opportunity for those who have read mostly within the Western tradition to learn and assess new and different ideas, and to see how they have influenced varied philosophical schools. The 2025 schedule can be found here.
NOTICE: If you would like to join the History of Philosophy Book Club, we're happy to have you! Please do take a few moments to give thoughtful answers to our registration questions -- expertise in philosophy is not required, but we'd sincerely like to know about you and your interests in philosophy! As our registration form notes, one-word or excessively brief answers to the questions, as well as snarky or scornful replies, will result in an automatic rejection. Additionally, because the group meets in person, membership is currently limited to the Washington, DC metro area. Thank you for your interest and consideration.
WHO WE ARE
Did you take a philosophy class in high school or college and wish you had taken more? Do you read philosophy texts independently but have no one to discuss them with? Then this group is for you.
Somewhat of a hybrid, it is a combination study group and book club. The backgrounds of our members vary: some have never taken a philosophy course and are essentially self-taught; others have doctorates in the field. Although the majority of writers have been European and American, we have read and are open to texts from other cultures, and starting in 2022 will be making an extra effort to study them. Representative philosophers have included Plato, Averroes, Confucius, Descartes, Spinoza, Kant, Sartre, Arendt, Rawls, Foucault, and Butler. We often read a single book by a single author, but if their output has been substantial we will consider an anthology or collection of shorter texts. At times we engage with debates between prominent philosophers, such as the Searle-Derrida debate about meaning and interpretation. We also sometimes discuss topics such as theories of metaphor or the philosophy of mathematics, or schools of philosophy such as pragmatism.
We started the group in 2010 with the classical period and finished in 2013 with twentieth century writers, then began the cycle in more depth in 2014 and wrapped up in December 2021, beginning the historical cycle again in January 2022.
Meetings are currently held at the West End Library in DC, located 2301 L St NW, Washington, DC 20037, near the Foggy Bottom-GWU metro station.
Tips in Preparing for Meetings
After you have finished the reading, ask yourself: (1) What are the philosopher’s principal ideas? (2) What arguments are used to support them, and are they strong or weak? (3) Who were the author’s major influences, and whom in turn did he/she influence? (4) What was the historical context in which the author wrote, and did this affect what was said? (5) Are the author’s works still relevant today and, if so, how?
To help in answering these questions, attendees are encouraged to consult the secondary resources posted in each announcement. Wikipedia, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy are especially useful.
Rules of Conduct at Meetings
Avoid monopolizing the conversation. If you've been speaking for several minutes, and sense others want to get in, relinquish the floor.
Stay on topic, and keep your remarks concise and to the point.
Challenging arguments and disputing facts are fine; personal attacks are not. Derogatory, prejudiced, or discriminatory remarks of any kind are grounds for ejection from the session and termination of membership.
If you have not read at least 50% of the recommended selections, consider skipping the meeting to allow other interested people to attend.
Those who violate the rules of conduct repeatedly will be dropped from the group at the discretion of the organizers.
Note:
To remain viable, groups depend on regular attendance. Toward this end, we ask that you only RSVP "Yes" if you know that you are likely to attend. If it turns out that you cannot make it to the meeting, we ask that you cancel your RSVP as soon as possible to make room for others.
Although everyone is welcome to use our resources, our targeted audience consists of people who live in the Maryland, DC, and Virginia area.
Upcoming events
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Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Selected Writings and Monadology
West End Neighborhood Library, 2301 L Street NW, Washington, DC, USLife
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was born in 1646 in Leipzig. He had access to a substantial library early in life and is said to have taught himself Latin to read the Church Fathers and Latin Classics. He attended universities in Leipzig and Altdorf, earned a doctorate in law in 1667, turned down a faculty position, and went to work for the Elector of Mainz. In 1672 he had the opportunity to visit Paris to discuss his Egypt Plan, in which France would invade Egypt and leave Germany and the Netherlands alone. There he met several leading French thinkers, including Nicolas Malebranche and Antoine Arnauld, and studied mathematics under Christian Huygens (discovering integral and differential calculus after about three years). He created a calculating machine and, based on this work, was made in 1673 a member of the Royal Society. In 1676 he began working in the court of the Duke of Hanover. He spent much of his life promoting science, libraries and learning and was the first president of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences. Leibniz made contributions to not only mathematics but physics, theology, and philosophy. He sought to reconcile Catholicism and Lutheranism and, in his own way, modern science and philosophy to certain Aristotelian ideas, such as the substantial form and final cause. He died in Hanover in 1716.
Themes
Leibniz is regarded, along with Descartes and Spinoza, as one of the most important rationalist philosophers of his age. He wrote a work in response to John Locke arguing that some principles or ideas are in some sense innate. In metaphysics, he asserted the principle of sufficient reason, which says that things happen when there is more reason for them to happen than not, and claimed that, strictly speaking, all true statements are analytic (e.g., it can be truly predicated of Ceasar a priori that he crossed the Rubicon). Unhappy with atomistic and other accounts of substance, he argued that monads (dimensionless, soul-like entities) are fundamental, reflect everything that has ever happened or will happen, and are in sync with each other through a pre-established order chosen by God. From the conclusion that God has chosen this world, and that God can only choose the best, Leibniz famously claimed that this is the best of all possible worlds. The system Leibniz set up would seem to leave little room for human freedom, but he tried to argue that people were nonetheless free in some sense. Right or wrong, his views are complex and interesting.
Works and This Month's Reading
Leibniz wrote so much that the critical edition of his collected works, underway for several decades, remains unfinished. Much of this output consists of short works—letters, journal articles—rather than a magnum opus. His only book-length statement of his philosophy published in his lifetime is Theodicy. His other major works include Discourse on Metaphysics, Monadology, and New Essays on Human Understanding. Except for Monadology, our readings this month are not from his most famous works; however, the selections in the Shorter Leibniz Texts are helpfully arranged, cover many of Leibniz's main claims, and, because the selections are short, can be read in coherent, manageable chunks.
Readings
· The Shorter Leibniz Texts (Strickland)
· Monadology (Google Books, pp. 215-271) – The Strickland version listed below is a good alternative. Both have more footnotes and explanatory text than text from Leibniz.
Optional
· Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, IEP – Summarizes Leibniz’s thought based on Discourse on Metaphysics, Monadology, Theodicy, and New Essays on Human Understanding.
· Leibniz's Monadology: A New Translation and Guide (Strickland) – An alternative to the version on Google (above), this version also has relevant selections from Theodicy.
· Leibniz: Philosophical Essays – Contains Discourse on Metaphysics, Monadology, the Preface to New Essays on Human Understanding, and several other short works and letters.
· The Philosophy of Spinoza & Leibniz (YouTube) - Magee & Quinton, 1987
· The Essence of Calculus (YouTube) - 3Blue1Brown - Quick intro.
· Mathematical Treasure: Leibniz's Papers on Calculus (MAA) – If you’re curious what Leibniz’s calculus looked like.
· Mathematics - 19th Century, Algebra, Calculus | Britannica – History of math, with some math.17 attendees
Pre-Modern African Philosophy; Zera Yacob and Walda Heywat
West End Neighborhood Library, 2301 L Street NW, Washington, DC, US**Please note we are starting 15 minutes early because of a conflict with the room at 2:45 pm.**
Embarking on an exploration of African philosophy before the modern era immediately raises surprising questions of scope, method, and interpretation.
We might think we know what we mean by the term “Africa,” but if we are referring to the continent, then we have to ask questions such as: should we start our investigation with Saint Augustine? He was, after all, ethnically an African Berber. Yet it seems obvious that he fits more comfortably into the European philosophical tradition. What about the thought of ancient Egypt, wherefrom we can trace an influence on the Greeks, especially regarding mathematics? Moreover, both Christianity and Islam extended their reach into Africa. When we encounter their influence, should we treat them as alien interventions, or as ways of thinking that integrated into African cultures?
Methodological problems emerge because much of the wisdom traditions of Africa were never recorded in writing but were passed down orally across generations. Can any of the ideas of those traditions be recovered? If so, is there any way of understanding them on their own terms, or do they inevitably become polluted by the modern, and often colonial, interpretations through which they are viewed? Indeed, examining African philosophy raises definitional questions: should we consider philosophy to be something done by the elite scholars and sages of a society, or should it refer to the wider worldview of the culture itself, as its people grapple with questions of being, knowledge, and the best ways to live together?
Furthermore, if we don’t think of Africa as a mere landmass, but in terms of culture, then we must ask: is there a singular African culture? While scholars sometimes sought for a monolithically “African” philosophy in the past, it seems clear that there are a diversity of cultural and philosophical traditions that must be accounted for.
For our purposes, we will leave aside Augustine (whom we previously addressed in detail as part of the Greco-Roman canon) and examine three areas of African philosophy for which contemporary scholars have found enough material to extensively analyze.
First, due to the existence of a written record, the thought of ancient Egypt and its sages are available to us to some degree. We will read some secondary scholarship that can give us at least a fragmentary look into a world far removed from ours that seems very different, yet at the same time familiar.
Next, the Ethiopian thinker Zera Yacob and his protege Walda Heywat wrote their “Hatatas,” or inquiries, in the 1500s, and demonstrated that serious philosophical thinking was occurring in Africa under an education system that was quite different from the European one. At the same time their thought was influenced by Christianity and its disputes with indigenous traditions, Islam, and Judaism. Yacob recorded the interesting story of his life and in the process asked deep questions about his relationship to his deity and the world, as well as the best way to live. His student Heywat then followed in his footsteps, providing his own philosophical take on perennial questions.
Finally, we will read additional secondary literature on a variety of African philosophical topics, including sage philosophy, oral philosophy, what it means to be a person, and the concept of Ubuntu.
This month we will read The Hatata Inquiries, by Zera Yacob and Walda Heywat, which is available in paperback on Amazon. Please read pages 1-8 and 71-160. The front matter (maps and figures, chronology, histories of the manuscripts) is also of interest.
Additionally, please read the following chapters in Africana Philosophy from Ancient Egypt to the Nineteenth Century: 2, 4, 5, 6, 12, 15, 16, 17, and 20. Each chapter is short, and they total about 90 pages of reading. Chapters 8, 9, 10, and 18 are also informative, but optional. This text is available in print and for Kindle on Amazon.
Since we are dealing with pre-modern African philosophy in this session, we will delay exploring philosophy among the African diaspora or modern African thinkers until later meetings.
Secondary Resources
Wikipedia:
Zera Yacob
Walda Heywat
African Philosophy
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
Africana Philosophy (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
African Sage Philosophy (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Akan Philosophy of the Person (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)4 attendees
Past events
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