Denver Philosophy Book Club

Continuing our series on nineteenth German philosophy, Cameron will host our discussion of Schopenhauer: A Very Short Introduction by Christopher Janaway. Tim suggested this book.

Schopenhauer is the most readable of German philosophers. This book gives a succinct explanation of his metaphysical system, concentrating on the original aspects of his thought, which inspired many artists and thinkers including Nietzsche, Wagner, Freud, and Wittgenstein. Schopenhauer's central notion is that of the will - a blind, irrational force that he uses to interpret both the human mind and the whole of nature. Seeing human behaviour as that of a natural organism governed by the will to life, Schopenhauer developed radical insights concerning the unconscious and sexuality which influenced both psychologists and philosophers.

ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

If you would like to host one of our events and you have a book in mind, please let me, Karl Kiefer, or Mark Hopkins know, and we will create a Meetup event for your book, assuming your suggested title qualifies as a book on philosophy in our view, and assuming that we deem you to be qualified to host. Our criteria are somewhat vague, but let's just say that we are not interested in books on the supernatural. We are interested in books that you might find in a syllabus for a college philosophy course. We are also focused on finding hosts who have demonstrated ability to direct philosophical conversation. You can always email me at camkruger@gmail.com if you have questions and/or suggestions.

As always, it's essential that everyone who comes to the meeting reads the book in its entirety and brings something for the potluck.

Happy reading!

Karl will host our discussion of the short book, Zombies in Western Culture: A Twenty-First Century Crisis by John Vervaeke, Christopher Mastropietro, and Filip Miscevic; and a paper, "Naturalizing relevance realization: why agency and cognition are fundamentally not computational" by Johannes Jaeger, Anna Riedl, Alex Djedovic, John Vervaeke, and Denis Walsh. Karl suggested both.

Karl writes:

"The problem of meaning often surfaces in or lurks below many issues and problems addressed by philosophy, linguistics, semiotics, psychology, sociology, anthropology, neuroscience, artificial intelligence and cognitive science in general. As many of you know, I have frequently attempted to relate issues dealing with meaning during the courses of our Meetup discussions. My concerns have mainly dealt with philosophical problems in semantics, mental representation, and phenomenal intentionality of meanings. But perhaps a more common meaning of meaning includes the distantly related notions of purpose or relevance, as in “the meaning of my life.” If you are interested in thinking and philosophizing about the meaning of not just my life, but yours, too, then I propose the two readings nominated above.

"Cognitive Scientist John Vervaeke has been working on and arguing for his Relevance Realization theory for nearly 3 decades. With Zombies (2017), Vervaeke, et. al. provide a compelling case for the increasingly popular, cultural phenomenon of Zombies in Western film and other media as symbolic, and, perhaps, symptomatic, of the contemporary crisis of meaning. The crisis of meaning is then related to his Relevance Realization theory. This short book is intended for lay audiences.

"In his more recent 2024 paper "Naturalizing Relevance Realization," published by Frontiers in Psychology, Vervaeke, et. al., places Relevance Realization within the Embodied Cognition paradigm in the cognitive sciences, focusing on its incompatibility with the computational theory of mind, and algorithmic models of the mind, in general, but still grounded in and consistent with some Predictive Processing accounts of perception, cognition, and action. Some familiarity with these philosophical and cognitive science camps will be helpful for the readers’ understanding of this paper."

ZOMBIES IN WESTERN CULTURE – A Twenty-First Century Crisis
By John Vervaeke, Christopher Mastropietro, & Filip Miscevic
And Naturalizing Relevance Realization: why agency and cognition are fundamentally not computational
By Johannes Jaeger, Anna Riedl, Alex Djedovic, John Vervaeke, & Denis Walsh
LINKS: ZOMBIES (free pdf version), NATURALIZING RELEVANCE REALIZATION
Note: Zombies is a short book, <100 text pages, also available at Amazon, et. al. Naturalizing Relevance Realization is a 20-page paper, available via Google Scholar.

If you would like to host one of our events and you have a book in mind, please let me, Karl Kiefer, or Mark Hopkins know, and we will create a Meetup event for your book, assuming your suggested title qualifies as a book on philosophy in our view, and assuming that we deem you to be qualified to host. Our criteria are somewhat vague, but let's just say that we are not interested in books on the supernatural. We are interested in books that you might find in a syllabus for a college philosophy course. We are also focused on finding hosts who have demonstrated ability to direct philosophical conversation. You can always email me at camkruger@gmail.com if you have questions and/or suggestions.

As always, it's essential that everyone who comes to the meeting reads the book in its entirety and brings something for the potluck.

Happy reading!

Continuing his series on the history of Western philosophy, Mark Hopkins will host our discussion of Spinoza: The Outcast Thinker by Devra Lehmann. Mark suggested this book.

An entertaining and accessible introduction to the radical philosopher of freedom of thought and religion is the only biography of Spinoza for young adults.

The second title in the Philosophy for Young People series.
A brilliant schoolboy in 17th-century Amsterdam, Bento Spinoza -- formally Baruch and later Benedict de Spinoza -- quickly learns to keep his ideas to himself. When he is 23, those ideas prove so scandalous to his own Jewish community that he is cast out, cursed, and effectively erased from their communal life. The scandal shows no sign of waning as his ideas spread throughout Europe. At the center of the storm, he lives the simplest of lives, quietly devoted to his work as a lens grinder and to his steadfast search for truth, striving to embody a philosophy of tolerance and benevolence. Spinoza does not live to see his ideas change the world.

What caused such an uproar? Spinoza challenged age-old ideas about God, the Bible, and religion. His God was the sum total of nature, not a father-figure who created the world and takes care of humankind. His bible was a book like any other, not a holy text to be interpreted only by religious authorities. His religion was a commitment to basic moral behavior, not a collection of superstitions or rituals. For such ideas, Spinoza was reviled, but he emerged from his experience as one of history's most articulate voices for freedom of thought, freedom of expression, and freedom of religion. Those of us who enjoy the fundamental rights of modern democracies are the beneficiaries of Spinoza's quiet bravery.

Spinoza: The Outcast Thinker is the second book in the new Philosophy for Young People series, introducing readers to seminal philosophers from ancient times up through the present day.

If you would like to host one of our events and you have a book in mind, please let me, Karl Kiefer, or Mark Hopkins know, and we will create a Meetup event for your book, assuming your suggested title qualifies as a book on philosophy in our view, and assuming that we deem you to be qualified to host. Our criteria are somewhat vague, but let's just say that we are not interested in books on the supernatural. We are interested in books that you might find in a syllabus for a college philosophy course. We are also focused on finding hosts who have demonstrated ability to direct philosophical conversation. You can always email me at camkruger@gmail.com if you have questions and/or suggestions.

As always, it's essential that everyone who comes to the meeting reads the book in its entirety and brings something for the potluck.

Happy reading!