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- Live-Reading Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics--American StyleLink visible for attendees
Let's try something new. For the next many weeks, we are going to live-read and discuss Aristotle's ~Nicomachean Ethics~. What is new and different about this project is that the translation, by Adam Beresford (2020), happens to be rendered in standard 'Murican English.
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From the translator's "Note" on the text:
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"This translation is conservative in interpretation and traditional in aim. It aims to translate the text as accurately as possible.
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"I translated every page from scratch, from a clean Greek text, rather than revising an existing translation. ... I wanted to avoid the scholars’ dialect that is traditionally used for translating Aristotle.
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"I reject the approach of Arthur Adkins, Elizabeth Anscombe, and others who followed Nietzsche in supposing that the main elements of modern thinking about right and wrong were unknown to the Greeks, or known to them only in some radically different form. My view of humanity and of our shared moral instincts is shaped by a newer paradigm. This is a post-Darwinian translation. (It is also more in line with the older, both Aristotelian and Christian view of human character.)
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"Having said that, I have no interest at all in modernizing Aristotle’s ideas. All the attitudes of this treatise remain fully Greek, very patriarchal, somewhat aristocratic, and firmly embedded in the fourth century BC. My choice of dialect (standard English) has no bearing on that whatsoever. (It is perfectly possible to express distinctively Greek and ancient attitudes in standard English.) ... I have also not simplified the text in any way. I have translated every iota, particle, preposition, noun, verb, adjective, phrase, clause, and sentence of the original. Every premise and every argument therefore remains – unfortunately – exactly as complex and annoyingly difficult as in any other version in whatever dialect.
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"Some scholars and students unwarily assume that the traditional dialect has a special connection with Greek and that using it brings readers closer to the original text; and that it makes the translation more accurate. In reality, it has no special tie to the Greek language, either in its main philosophical glossary or in its dozens of minor (and pointless) deviations from normal English. And in my view it certainly makes any translation much less accurate.
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"I will occasionally refer to the scholars’ dialect (‘Gringlish’) and its traditional glossary in the Notes."
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Here is our plan:
1. Read Intro excerpts or a summary to gain the big picture.
2. Read a segment of the translated text.
3. Discuss it analytically and interpretively.
4. Repeat again at #2 for several more times.
5. Discuss the segments evaluatively.
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Zoom is the project's current meeting platform, but that can change. The project's cloud drive is here, at which you'll find the reading texts, notes, and slideshows. - A Discourse Upon the Origin of Inequality - RousseauLink visible for attendees
This meetup is hosted by Wisdom and Woe. For more details and to sign up for this event, go to: https://www.meetup.com/wisdom-and-woe/events/275332042/
Rousseau's A Discourse Upon the Origin and the Foundation of the Inequality Among Mankind (1755) weaves together philosophy, political theory, and anthropology to explore the history of human societies. It postulates a moment in time--before any notions of property or justice--in which distinctions of rank, wealth, and power did not exist.
According to Rousseau, an individual is naturally endowed with the basic means of survival. The shortcomings of the human condition (exposure to the elements, for instance) are perfectly tolerable within the limits of one's own self-sufficiency (e.g., by an ability to fashion crude clothing and shelter).
However, interactions between people create the opportunity for material wealth to be shifted to some at the expense of others. And "from the moment it appeared an advantage for one man to possess the quantity of provisions requisite for two, all equality vanished." Through socialization, such inordinate desires may be normalized, legitimized, and institutionalized: as civil society takes shape, people (like domesticated plants and animals) may be abberated into inhumane "monsters."
With an eloquent elaboration on the "noble savage" motif, Rousseau invokes nostalgia for a simpler existence, diagnoses our modern alienation from nature, and argues in favor of our material and psychological independence, anticipating Nietzsche's moral genealogy and Veblen's critique of "conspicuous consumption."
Join Wisdom and Woe here: https://www.meetup.com/wisdom-and-woe
Wisdom and Woe is a philosophy and literature discussion group dedicated to exploring the world, work, life, and times of Herman Melville and the 19th century Romantic movement. The group is free and open to anybody with an interest in learning and growing by "diving deeper" into "time and eternity, things of this world and of the next, and books, and publishers, and all possible and impossible matters."
- Designing The Perfect Society – 1on1 philosophical & political discussion (COH)Link visible for attendees
IMPORTANT NOTICE:
To be the speaking participant you must RSVP via Calendly.
The link to my Calendly calendar is available in my Egora profile:
Egora-ILP.org/philosopher/Cezary_JurewiczAll others are welcome to join to listen, use the chat, use the breakout rooms, and comment at the end.
About Citizen Office Hours:
If the Citizen is to be the highest authority in democracy, should we not have office hours to make ourselves available and accountable to our fellow citizens? The answer is YES – yes, we should.Also, in a democracy, there is no power without responsibility. If the citizens do not accept the responsibility of being citizens, then we do not really have any power – the power we might think we have is illusory. Therefore, all responsible citizens should make themselves available at their own "Citizen Office Hours".
This event is a publication of my Citizen Office Hours. I am making myself available to discuss any of my or your ideas published in Egora. Please be already registered for Egora before our meeting and at least somewhat familiar with my Ideological Profile so we can have a proper and thorough discussion. If you share your Ideological Profile in the comments in advance, i will take some time to study it before our meeting (ideally, the audience will do so too).
- Descartes' Meditations: First Set of Objections (Live Reading)Pro Musica, Chicago, IL
We'll continue reading the first set of objections
Let's go back to the drawing board with a live reading of Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy!
Descartes' Meditations are a classic of philosophy typically taken as kicking off the modern period of philosophy. In the text, Descartes seeks to knock down and rebuild all of what he knows in order to finally find security in his cognitions and a path forward for securing knowledge of God and man's nature.
We welcome beginners and advanced readers alike.
Various translations are available, please select any you'd like or have around.
Text links (Amazon):
Cottingham translation (Cambridge)
Cress translation (Hackett)
Heffernan translation (English/Latin, Notre Dame)
There is also a translation by Norman Kemp Smith, but it is out of print
Digital links:
Cottingham translation (Libgen, Cambridge)
Cress translation (Libgen, Hackett)
Latin text (Project Gutenberg)