Coping and Confrontation in Disenchanted Worlds

This week we will examine Buddhism, Stoicism, and scientific materialism through the lens of disenchantment.

Each offers clarity, resilience, and freedom from certain illusions, while also challenging deeply held intuitions about attachment, grief, love, meaning, and how much the world is permitted to matter to us.

We’ll ask whether these philosophies function partly as ways of coping by advancing disenchanted pictures of the world, and whether we can take their benefits without accepting them all the way down, or whether those benefits depend on commitments many people find unsettling.

This is not a debate about which view is true, but an inquiry into what these worldviews demand of us, and what is gained or lost by refusing to follow them all the way down.

This discussion may be challenging or emotionally demanding.

** Group guidelines**

• All perspectives are welcome
• Everyone has an opportunity to speak and listen
• Dialogue is respectful and open
• No prior philosophical knowledge required!