The Toronto Philosophy Meetup

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About us

Welcome to the Toronto Philosophy Meetup! This is a community (online and in-person) for anyone interested in philosophy, including newcomers to the subject. We host discussions, talks, reading groups, pub nights, debates, and other events on an inclusive range of topics and perspectives in philosophy, drawing from an array of materials (e.g. philosophical writings, for the most part, but also movies, literature, history, science, art, podcasts, poetry, current events, ethnographies, and whatever else seems good.)

Anyone is welcomed to host philosophy-related events here. We also welcome speakers and collaborations with other groups.

Join us at an event soon for friendship, cooperative discourse, and mental exercise!

You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter or Bluesky and join our new Discord for extended discussion and to stay in touch with other members.

Feel free to propose meetup topics (you can do this on the Message Boards), and please contact us if you would like to be a speaker or host an event.

(NOTE: Most of our events are currently online because of the pandemic.)

"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

See here for an extensive list of podcasts and resources on the internet about philosophy.

See here for the standards of conduct that our members are expected to abide by. Members should also familiarize themselves with Meetup's Terms of Service Agreement, especially the section on Usage and Content Policies.

See here for a list of other philosophy-related groups to check out in the Toronto area.

Please note that no advertising of external events, products, businesses, or organizations is allowed on this site without permission from the main organizer.

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Make a Donation

Since 2016, the Toronto Philosophy Meetup has been holding regular events that are free, open to the public, and help to foster community and a culture of philosophy in Toronto and beyond. To help us continue to do so into the future, please consider supporting us with a donation! Any amount is most welcome.

You can make a donation here.

See here for more information and to meet our donors.

Supporters will be listed on our donors page unless they wish to remain anonymous. We thank them for their generosity!

If you would like to help out or support us in other ways (such as with any skills or expertise you may have), please contact us.

Note: You can also use the donation link to tip individual hosts. Let us know who you want to tip in the notes section. You can also contact hosts directly for ways to tip them.

Featured event

Socrates vanquishing the Sophists: Plato’s Protagoras (Live Reading)

Sat, Apr 25 · 10:30 AM EDT

Online

Can excellence and virtue be taught? Can virtuous politics be taught? Can political excellence be taught or transmitted in any way, shape or form? These are only some of the questions with which Protagoras wrestles and the provide Plato with ample opportunity to engage with diverse topics such as the constitution of human societies, the ultimate unity of virtues and the responsibilities of teachers.

Protagoras, possibly the most famous sophist of his day and a leading figure in the sophistic movement, is charging a king’s ransom as a fee for his professorial services and a young man by the name of Hippocrates is prepared to pay. He persuades Socrates to act as a mediator and convince Protagoras to take him on as a student. The ensuing dialogue will cast doubt on Protagoras’ claim that he is able to prepare the future leaders of the political community.

The dialogue is supposedly taking place some time before the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, probably in 434-432 BC but was written in the 380s and belongs to the early platonic period.

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This will be a live reading of Plato's Protagoras. Saturday March 21 will be the first session on the Protagoras and thus the ideal time to join our group. Reference will be made to contemporary and older scholarship. Historical context will be brought up whenever necessary to illuminate the dialogue.

We will be using Benjamin Jowett’s translation, which can be found here.

This Plato group meets on Saturdays and has previously read the Symposium, Phaedo, the Apology, Philebus, Gorgias, Critias, Laches, Timaeus, Euthyphro, Crito and other works, including ancient commentaries and texts for contextualisation such as Gorgias’ Praise of Helen. It is our aspiration to read the Platonic corpus over a long period of time.

The host is Constantine Lerounis, a distinguished Greek philologist and poet, author of Four Access Points to Shakespeare’s Works (in Greek) and Former Advisor to the President of the Hellenic Republic.