About us
[Note: This group is looking for a new owner! In the meantime, join the Toronto Philosophy Meetup to find many more online philosophy events and activities: https://www.meetup.com/the-toronto-philosophy-meetup/
The description below is from the previous organizer of the group.]
Welcome to the Calgary Philosophy Meetup! We're a local community for people interested in reading and discussing philosophy. We hold discussions and other events on a broad range of philosophical topics and problems. No previous experience is required for any of our meetups, only a willingness to engage with the works being discussed. The only basic ground-rule is to please, as with everywhere else in life, be polite and respectful during discussions.
Feel free to propose topics you would like to see (you can do this in the Discussions section), and please contact the organizers if you would like to host an event yourself, or organize events here on a regular basis.
Upcoming events
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FTI Presentation: Trump as a Bulwark Against Critical Social Justice
·OnlineOnline# FTI: Presentation: Trump is the bulwark against the Critical Social Justice movement (and why that’s good)
Many people ask how any reasonable person could vote for Trump with all of his character flaws. What could possibly justify a return to all of the scandal and outrage that came with his first term? Surely the Biden-Harris admin is preferable. Right?
In this FTI presentation, our guest presenter will make the case that he went against his democratic voting record to stop an insidious far-left ideology that was anti-Liberal, bigoted, intolerant, theocratic, and revolutionary in nature. He will show that it was institutionalized both in the private and public sectors, through federal policy, all the way up to both Biden and Harris's priorities.
Despite the unassailable label of Critical Social Justice, he will demonstrate that this movement is toxic and fueled by both resentment and foreign influence. And that despite all Trump’s flaws, not only is he the right man to stop this creeping menace, but he has already taken bold steps to do so. He will bring the receipts to prove this.
Come prepared to listen actively, ask respectful questions, and practice the discipline of understanding before responding.
Our Presenter
Sean Miller is the host of the meetup group ‘The Bridge: Liberal and Conservative Common Grounds.’ Sean is a Classic Liberal who voted for Obama, Hillary, and then Trump twice. He’s an award winning writer, director and producer of the Sci-Fi thriller ‘The Replacement,’ and an avid reader of history and psychology.Although agnostic, he speaks fluently in both conservative and progressive, and has been increasingly alarmed by the Democratic Party's abandonment of Liberal principles and embrace of Critical Theory.
Format:
Lecture and discussionNote:
social time for our community 15 minutes before the presentation.To get familiar with our past events, feel free to check out our YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmixGB9GdrptyEWovEj80zgAfter registering via zoom, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
We publish our event recordings on our Youtube channel to offer our help to anyone who would like to but can’t attend the meeting, so we need to give this clause. If you don’t want to be recorded, just remain on mute and keep your video off.
Here’s our legal notice:
For valuable consideration received, by joining this event I hereby grant Free Thinker Institute and its legal representatives and assigns, the irrevocable and unrestricted right to use and publish any and all Zoom recordings for trade, advertising and any other commercial purpose, and to alter the same without any restriction. I hereby release Free Thinker Institute and its legal representatives and assigns from all claims and liability related to said video recordings.2 attendees
Foucault Interlude: A Preface to Transgression & The History of Sexuality
·OnlineOnlineWe are taking a break from Bataille's Erotism (1957) to read two major texts from Michel Foucault over the next several weeks**:**
"A Preface to Transgression" (1963), and
The History of Sexuality, Volume 1 (1976)Reading schedule
Access the weekly reading schedule at this link:
https://sites.google.com/view/existentialism-and-its-critics/You can find all texts in the Google folder linked at the VERY BOTTOM of this description. The Zoom link is also posted there.
👇 scroll all the way down for the links 👇ABOUT THIS PROJECT
Foucault regarded Bataille as "one of the most important writers of his century" and was deeply influenced by his approach to thought and the unknown. The first piece above was written as a tribute to Bataille shortly after his death and published in the journal Critique, which Bataille himself started in 1946. It shows us the early Foucault of the archeological method. Though falling in the broadly structuralist tradition, Foucault is here nonetheless preoccupied with themes of death, the void and limit-experiences. As we see, he directly inherits the problematic of transgression that we've encountered so forcefully in Bataille.By 1976 Foucault is well into his genealogical period. His approach to sexuality is now avowedly historical, focused on the specificity of discursive practices and the power relations that permeate them. This is a post-structuralist Foucault, less interested in sweeping logics such as that of transgression and more intent on the local and the particular.
The sustained focus on sexuality, together with the momentum we’ve gathered through our reading of Bataille, offer us an attractive opportunity to trace this rupture / evolution in Foucault's thought. Once we complete this interlude, we'll return to Part 2 of Bataille's Erotism.
SOME DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
- Is the well-known transition from archeology to genealogy evident in Foucault's texts on sexuality that we are reading? Does "A Preface to Transgression" fit neatly in the archeological category, or does it already contain seeds of a future development?
- What is Foucault's attitude towards transgression in The History of Sexuality? Is transgression still foundational to his understanding of sexuality in 1976?
- The death of God is a dominant theme for the early Foucault, as it is for Bataille. Yet post-structuralism is often said to distance itself from the heady obsession with death, lack, void, abyss, negation and the like. Is such a shift observable in Foucault's writings on sexuality?
- We've seen the outlines of a radical Hegelianism in Bataille (inspired by his exchanges with Kojève). Can we discern Foucault's stance towards this Hegelian background? Where does (or would) he stand on the questions of dialectic, Aufhebung, reconciliation and the negative that Bataille has addressed at various points?
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ABOUT THE BATAILLE GROUP
This is a comprehensive reading group focusing on the works of French writer Georges Bataille. We are reading key texts from Bataille himself, as well as tracing his relationship with other major thinkers such as Hegel, Nietzsche, André Breton/Surrealism, Blanchot, Lacan, Foucault, Deleuze, Derrida, etc.Some familiarity with Bataille's mode and style of thought is helpful but not necessary. You're welcome to join the group in medias res at any time. See, however, the group rules below.
Please take the time to read and reflect on the reading prior to each meeting. Everyone is welcome to attend, but speaking priority will be given to people who have read the text.
Topics to be discussed in the future:
- Return to the 2nd part of Erotism
- Bataille's critique of Hegel: the negative and general economy
- Derrida's reading of Bataille in "From Restricted to General Economy"
Past topics included:
- Bataille's Erotism, Part 1 & the logic of transgression
- Bataillean transgression and Deleuzian line of flight: reading Fitzgerald's "The Crack-Up"
- Bataille's aesthetics: the rift with Surrealism
- Susan Sontag on avant-guarde literature
- Bataille's novel Blue of Noon
- Inner Experience and a-theological mysticism
- Bataille's reading of Nietzsche and critique of fascism
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MORE ABOUT BATAILLE
Georges Bataille stands out as an eclectic, fascinating and controversial figure in the world of French letters. A contemporary of Sartre and Lacan, he combined ideas from diverse disciplines to create a unique position that he called 'base materialism'. In the early 20s, Bataille abandoned Catholicism, embraced psychoanalysis and Marxism and initiated an unorthodox search for the sacred in late modernity. His obsessive pursuit of ecstatic liminal experiences took him across the boundaries of philosophy, sociology, political economy, mythology, poetry, literature and mystical theology. His works develop a libidinal economy of unconditioned expenditure, offer a critique of fascism and embrace marginal experiences in the style of the French poets. Though he remained largely outside the academic mainstream and worked as a librarian, Bataille is a formative precursor to the post-structuralist philosophers of the '60s -- and may well be more relevant to our time than ever.In this group we look at a significant cross-section of Bataille's texts. Our aim is to understand his thought on its own terms as well as place him in the context of his predecessors and the French thinkers who followed his lead. In view of Bataille's early relationship with Surrealism, the referenced artworks will spotlight this movement.
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GROUP RULES
- Please spend 1-2 hours per week reading and preparing for the discussion.
- Keep your comments concise and relevant to the text.
- Please limit each comment to a maximum of 2-3 minutes. You're welcome to speak as many times as you wish.
- Virtual meeting courtesy: let's not interrupt each other and keep mics muted when not speaking.
- We'll focus the discussion with key passages and discussion questions. Be sure to bring your favorite passages, questions, comments, criticisms, etc.
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Join the Facebook group for more resources and discussion:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/755460079505498If you have attended previous meetings, please fill out a brief survey at this link: https://forms.gle/tEMJ4tw2yVgnTsQD6
All readings can be found in this Google folder: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1VPRdvZYmUKBY3cSxD8xC8sTYtSEKBXDs
Zoom link:
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81251109319?pwd=R3hVQ2RqcVBvaHJwYnoxMFJ5OXJldz09Art: À mon seul désir (1979) by Gerard Fromanger
2 attendees
Live-Reading Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics – American Style
·OnlineOnlineLet's try something new. For the next dozen weeks or so, starting 4/17/2022, 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.2 attendees
Designing The Perfect Society – 1on1 philosophical & political WORKSHOP (COH)
·OnlineOnlineIMPORTANT NOTICE:
To be the speaking participant you must RSVP via Calendly.
The link to my Calendly calendar is available in my Egora profile:
http://egora-ilp.org/philosopher/Cezary_JurewiczAll others are welcome to join to listen, use the chat, use the breakout rooms, comment at the end, and be the speaking participant at the next available session.
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 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" to build our democratic power through collaboration.
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. Egora is a platform for efficiently developing and effectively sharing our political philosophies with each other. 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). Here is the link to my profile again:
http://egora-ilp.org/philosopher/Cezary_Jurewicz1 attendee
Past events
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