What we’re about
Drunken Philosophy Club
Welcome to Drunken Philosophy, an every-other-Saturday-night get-together for people who crave inappropriately serious conversations with soon-to-be friends. We meet at a rotating selection of local bars, with The Orical being our recent favorite haunt.
What we're about:
- Engaging discussions on thought-provoking topics
- A mix of serious philosophy and lighthearted debates
- No expertise required - just curiosity and an open mind
At Drunken Philosophy, you might find yourself pondering the merits of Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative one moment, and passionately arguing whether a hot dog qualifies as a sandwich the next. Our conversations range from playful to profound, always with room for diverse perspectives.
No a priori knowledge of philosophy or anything else is required or expected. There are no fixed topics and no formal rules - just a room full of interesting people engaged in many different conversations on a wide variety of subjects. Although we meet at bars, drinking is strictly optional.
We typically have an optional discussion prompt to get things rolling, but the conversation is free to flow wherever our collective curiosity takes us. Our inclusive group welcomes thinkers of all backgrounds and experiences, fostering a respectful environment where everyone's voice is valued and new ideas are enthusiastically embraced.
Upcoming events (1)
See all- Drunken Philosophy x Kava Talkscasa cacao, Columbus, OH
Join us on Tuesday, July 15 for a collaboration with casa cacao! This special event will be part of the weekly Kava Talks series which happen every Tuesday at casa cacao on 367 E Hudson St.
There will be a new philosophy-themed (non-alcoholic) drink special, so be sure to come give it a try!
No reading or preparation is required, and a handout will be provided with background context and discussion prompts.
Ontological Idealism
What if reality is not, at its core, made of matter, but of mind? This is the thesis of ontological idealism—a philosophical position that claims consciousness, not physical matter, is the fundamental substance of the universe. For our next discussion, we’ll explore this view through the lens of Bernardo Kastrup, a contemporary philosopher whose book The Idea of the World offers a modern defense of analytic idealism.
"The mainstream physicalist notion that the world is outside and independent of mind is an abstract explanatory model constructed in thought, not an empirical observation. After all, what we call ‘the world’ is available to us solely as ‘images’—defined here broadly, so to include any sensory modality—on the screen of perception, which is itself mental. We interpret the contents of perception as coming from a world outside mind because this seems to explain the fact that we all share the same world beyond the boundary of our skin, as well as the fact that the laws that govern this world do not depend on our personal volition. Stanford physicist Prof. Andrei Linde, well known for his theories of cosmological inflation, summarized it thus:
'Let us remember that our knowledge of the world begins not with matter but with perceptions. I know for sure that my pain exists, my “green” exists, and my “sweet” exists. I do not need any proof of their existence, because these events are a part of me; everything else is a theory. Later we find out that our perceptions obey some laws, which can be most conveniently formulated if we assume that there is some underlying reality beyond our perceptions. This model of material world obeying laws of physics is so successful that soon we forget about our starting point and say that matter is the only reality, and perceptions are only helpful for its description. This assumption is almost as natural (and maybe as false) as our previous assumption that space is only a mathematical tool for the description of matter. But in fact we are substituting reality of our feelings by a successfully working theory of an independently existing material world. And the theory is so successful that we almost never think about its limitations until we must address some really deep issues, which do not fit into our model of reality.' "
The Idea of the World - Bernardo Kastrup
Kastrup’s central argument is that consciousness is the “ontological primitive”—the most basic, irreducible aspect of reality. He challenges the widespread assumption of materialism, which holds that matter is primary and consciousness emerges from complex arrangements of physical stuff. Kastrup contends that materialism is both counterintuitive and philosophically untenable. He points out that materialism requires us to believe our vivid, qualitative experiences are nothing more than a “hallucinated” reconstruction by the brain of an external world made of “amorphous, odourless, soundless, tasteless” particles and fields—entities that, by definition, lack the qualities of experience. He argues that this is an unnecessary and convoluted assumption, especially since all we ever truly know are the contents of consciousness itself.
Discussion prompts:
- Is Kastrup’s analytic idealism a compelling alternative to materialism and panpsychism?
- The “hard problem of consciousness,” famously articulated by David Chalmers, refers to the challenge of explaining how and why physical processes in the brain give rise to subjective, qualitative experiences—what it feels like to be conscious. Materialism faces persistent criticism on this front: while it excels at explaining behavior and brain function, it struggles to account for the emergence of inner experience.
- How do historical forms of idealism—from Plato and Plotinus to Hegel—inform or challenge Kastrup’s modern arguments? Why has materialism come to dominate Western thought since the Enlightenment and the scientific revolution?
- What are the philosophical and practical implications if consciousness is, indeed, the ground of being?
Flyer photo by Philipp Trubchenko on Unsplash.com
