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- Acquiring Character Traits -- Aristotle's Nicomachean EthicsLink visible for attendees
July 6 - This meeting will be a Q&A session to understand fully Aristotle's scenario for troubleshooting what we human beings call lacking self-control (despite our sincere intentions), which, in olden times, is called incontinence or weakness of will.
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The two-part scenario and the key findings are at NE VII.3 1147a24–b5. My summary is on the cloud drive here. https://mega.nz/file/bigWBZSL#L4oq0FmkN9in71kzFtgWm6b5wXMHyEPVuA_HYqahvCU Bring your own questions about the text if you are interested in joining this Sunday's meeting.
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When you are on a diet, and you feel hungry, it matters, according to Aristotle, whether you "see" this piece of cake either as fattening or as sweet. How are you supposed to "see" that? How should you "see" that?
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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, ambition, …)
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. - Aristotle's On Interpretation - Live-Reading--European StyleLink visible for attendees
July 8 - We are returning to the fifth and sixth paragraphs of chapter 13 to rediscover an often-neglected distinction between possibility and necessity as analogous to the changeable and the unchangeable. The bookmark is set at Bekker line 22b29. George will present his findings.
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Aristotle grapples with competing notions of "possibility" {dunamis}--metaphysical possibility concerning a thing's capacity and ability versus epistemological possibility concerning whether the evidence justifies a predication. In this last part of the chapter, he addresses the metaphysical.
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On the nature of anything existent, it is necessarily what it is. What are possible to be or not to be for it depend on what it is already. Some existents have opposite possibilities; but some have only one-directional possibility. Fire, for example, is going to be hot; it cannot not be hot. So, fire has the one-directional possibility about being hot.
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What else? Join the meeting and discuss.
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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
|-- 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.
- Kant: Critique of Practical Reason (Week 2)Link visible for attendees
Meeting link: https://meet.jit.si/CPM-Kant-Wednesdays
Our Kant reading continues with the Critique of Practical Reason. We'll be covering Book I (Analytic) - Chapter I
pp 153 - 186 (Gregor, Cambridge Practical Philosophy)
pp 29 - 77 (Pluhar)
pp 5:19 - 57 (Complete Works)Note: Meetings focus on developing a common language and friendship through studying 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 experience with Kant is necessary.
Reading Schedule:
Week 1:
Preface and Introduction
pp 139 - 149 (Gregor, Cambridge Practical Philosophy)
pp 3 - 25 (Pluhar)
pp 5:3 - 16 (Complete Works)Week 2:
Book I (Analytic) - Chapter I
pp 153 - 186 (Gregor, Cambridge Practical Philosophy)
pp 29 - 77 (Pluhar)
pp 5:19 - 57 (Complete Works)Week 3:
Book I (Analytic) - Chapters II and III
pp 186 - 225 (Gregor, Cambridge Practical Philosophy)
pp 77 - 135 (Pluhar)
pp 5:57 - 106 (Complete Works)Week 4:
Book II (Dialectic)
pp 226 - 258 (Gregor, Cambridge Practical Philosophy)
pp 137 - 186 (Pluhar)
pp 5:107 - 148 (Complete Works)Week 5:
Doctrine of Method
pp 261 - 271 (Gregor, Cambridge Practical Philosophy)
pp 189 - 205 (Pluhar)
pp 5:151 - 163 (Complete Works)There are numerous editions (and free translations available online if you search), but this collection contains all of Kant's Practical Philosophy in translation:
- Kant FTΦ: Eco's Interpretation and Overinterpretation (Live Reading)Link visible for attendees
Meeting link: https://meet.jit.si/CPM-Kant-Wednesdays
We'll be continuing our reading from page 34.
Eco attempts to sail between Scylla and Charybdis: is interpretation completely open-ended, or must we connect things to the "author's intent"?
We'll read at least Eco's lectures in the collection. We may determine later if we want to read some of the other collected responses.
Our surface goal of this meeting is to understand the author (rather than criticize). Our secondary goal is to formulate a rough "theory" of interpretation that can be applied to any other reading we do.
PDF: https://annas-archive.org/md5/5b2a48f56279dfe34078d7ba4ae842a7
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Interpretation-Overinterpretation-Tanner-Lectures-Values/dp/0521402271/
Note: Kant FTΦ (Friends Through Philosophy) is a group of individuals who have connected over reading Kant (and other philosophers).
This meeting will focus on regular attendees' interests. We will frequently reference Kant and other philosophers. Discussions may involve shared notions that have developed over time. If you are not a regular attendee and feel lost in the conversation, it may be a byproduct of being newer to the meetings: don't hesitate to ask for clarification.
