What we’re about
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.
* * * * *
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
Foucault: The Genesis of The History of Sexuality (Ch 5 – Confession)
On 26 August 1974, Michel Foucault completed work on Discipline and Punish, and on that very same day began writing the first volume of The History of Sexuality. A little under ten years later, on 25 June 1984, shortly after the second and third volumes were published, he was dead.
This decade is one of the most fascinating of his career. It begins with the initiation of the sexuality project, and ends with its enforced and premature closure. Yet in 1974 he had something very different in mind for The History of Sexuality than the way things were left in 1984. Foucault originally planned a thematically organised series of six volumes, but wrote little of what he promised and published none of them. Instead over the course of the next decade he took his work in very different directions, studying, lecturing and writing about historical periods stretching back to antiquity.
This book offers a detailed intellectual history of both the abandoned thematic project and the more properly historical version left incomplete at his death. It draws on all Foucault’s writings in this period, his courses at the Collège de France and lectures elsewhere, as well as material archived in France and California to provide a comprehensive overview and synthetic account of Foucault’s last decade.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Hello everyone and welcome to this series on Foucault. Please note that there is a technology related issue that you should know about. Please be sure to read to the end of this blurb for details.
In this series, we will read the four volume biography of Foucault written by Stuart Elden. The first volume on the genesis of The History of Sexuality is called Foucault's Last Decade (2016, Polity Press).
Elden wrote the biography in reverse chronological order, so Volume One actually covers Foucault's later years. The description from the back of this book is reproduced at the bottom of this page. 👇👇👇
When we are finished with Volume One, we will read something short by Foucault himself, starting with his essay "What Is Enlightenment"? Then we will move on to reading Volume Two of the biography and so on until we have finished all four volumes of the biography and read three short writings by Foucault himself.
The format will be my (Philip's) usual "accelerated live read" format. What this means is that each participant will be expected to read roughly 25-30 pages before each session. (This is a biography after all so it should not be too onerous to read that many pages). Each participant will have the option of picking a few paragraphs they especially want to focus on. We will then do a live read on the paragraphs that the participants found most interesting when they did the assigned reading. When you are choosing your passages, please try to lean in the direction of picking passages with philosophical content rather than mere historical interest. But I can be flexible about this.
People who have not done the reading are welcome to attend this meetup. However if you want to TALK during the meetup it is essential that you do the reading. I mean it! It is essential that the direction of the conversation be influenced only by people who have actually done the reading. You may think you are so brilliant and wonderful that you can come up with great points even if you do not do the reading. You probably are brilliant and wonderful — no argument there. But you still have to do the reading if you want to talk in this meetup. REALLY.
Please note that this is a "raise hands" meetup and has a highly structured format, not an anarchy-based one. This is partly for philosophical reasons: I want to discourage a simple-minded rapid fire "gotcha!" approach to philosophy. But our highly structured format is also for disability related reasons that I can explain if required.
THE READING SCHEDULE (pdf here)
- Sept 10: Read up to page 26
- Sept 17: Read up to page 44
- Sept 24: Meeting cancelled
- Oct 1: Read up to page 81
- Oct 15: Ch. 4 (read up to page 111)
- Oct 29: Ch. 5 (read up to page 133)
- Session after that: Ch. 6 (read up to page 163)
- Session after that: Ch. 7 (read up to page 190)
- Session after that: Ch. 8 (read up to page 209 and the footnotes)
After that the group will read Foucault's essay "What is Enlightenment".
It is a shame it has to come to this, but:
I am Canadian and like many Canadians my relationship with America has changed drastically in the last 10 months or so. In this meetup, no discussion of the current US political situation will be allowed. This is unfortunate, but that is how it must be. When talking about Foucault there will no doubt be a strong desire to talk about politics. No problem! It is a big old world and the political situations of literally every other country on planet earth (including their right wing populist movements) are fair game for discussion in this meetup. Just not that of the US. The political situation in the USA is now a topic for Canadians to think about in a very practical, strategic manner as we fight to prevent our democracy from being destroyed, and our land and resources stolen. The time may come when a Canadian like me can talk about this topic in an abstract philosophical way, but I suspect that time is at least 6 years away.
Now the technology point: Scott will be in the meetup for a few minutes at the start to set things up. But then he will leave. (He's not into Foucault! Unfathomable!) Someone in the meetup will have to volunteer to tell me who has their hand up and whose turn it is to speak. I am disabled in a way that makes it impossible for me to both manage the philosophy content and also monitor whose turn it is to speak. With any luck one or more regulars in the meetup will make it a habit to step up and volunteer each time.
Upcoming events
510
•OnlineNot Just For the Boys: Why We Need More Women in Science & Philosophy
OnlineWhy are girls discouraged from doing science? Why do so many promising women leave science in early and mid-career? Why do women not prosper in the scientific workforce?
Not Just For the Boys looks back at how society has historically excluded women from the scientific sphere and discourse, what progress has been made, and how more is still needed. Athene Donald, herself a distinguished physicist, explores societal expectations during both childhood and working life using evidence of the systemic disadvantages women operate under, from the developing science of how our brains are — and more importantly aren't — gendered, to social science evidence around attitudes towards girls and women doing science.
This event will focus on the historical marginalisation of women and women's writing in philosophy and science. Three experts in women's writing in philosophy and science — both past and present — will discuss how and why women were marginalised and excluded from these disciplines, challenges and obstacles faced by those taking on the task of recovering women's work, and the vital importance of developing historical narratives centering on women.
About the Speakers:
Athene Donald is Emerita Professor of Physics at the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge and author of Not Just For the Boys: Why We Need More Women in Science published by Oxford University Press in 2023. Her research is in the general field of soft matter and physics at the interface of biology; she has published over 250 papers in these fields.
Francesca Peacock is a writer and journalist and an Ertegun Scholar at the University of Oxford. She is the author of a recent biography of the 17th Century polymath Margaret Cavendish, Pure Wit: The Revolutionary Life of Margaret Cavendish published in 2024.
Jennifer Park is Lecturer in Early Modern English at Glasgow University and a specialist in early modern literature and critical race theory. Her research examines the histories of science and medicine to interrogate power, violence, and exploitation in early modern English literature.
The Moderator:
Peter West is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Northeastern University London. Peter’s research specialises in the history of philosophy, covering two areas: Early Modern Philosophy and History of Analytic Philosophy. His work is underwritten by a commitment to expanding the canon of philosophy’s history and recovering the work of figures from typically marginalised backgrounds.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
This is an online conversation and audience Q&A presented by the UK-based journal The Philosopher. It is open to the public and held on Zoom. The event is free to attend but the Zoom registration page has an optional donation amount by default that you can change to zero (or whatever you wish). Donations go to The Philosopher magazine to cover our costs and expand the scope of the series.
Please send feedback or comments about our events directly to thephilosopher1923@gmail.com. We'd love to hear from you!
About The Philosopher (https://www.thephilosopher1923.org/):
The Philosopher is the longest-running public philosophy journal in the UK (founded in 1923). It is published by the The Philosophical Society of England (http://www.philsoceng.uk/), a registered charity founded ten years earlier than the journal in 1913, and still running regular groups, workshops, and conferences around the UK. As of 2018, The Philosopher is edited by Newcastle-based philosopher Anthony Morgan and is published quarterly, both in print and digitally.
The journal aims to represent contemporary philosophy in all its many and constantly evolving forms, both within academia and beyond. Contributors over the years have ranged from John Dewey and G.K. Chesterton to contemporary thinkers like Christine Korsgaard, Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò, Elizabeth Anderson, Martin Hägglund, Cary Wolfe, Avital Ronell, and Adam Kotsko.
13 attendees
•OnlineHeidegger vs. His Platonic Critics – Part 4: Patočka’s Negative Platonism
OnlineDid Heidegger get Plato completely wrong? This book introduces the arguments of three prominent Platonic critics of Heidegger — Leo Strauss (1899-1973), Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900-2002), and Jan Patočka (1907-1977) — with the aim of evaluating the trenchancy of their criticisms. The author shows that these three thinkers uncover novel ways of reading Plato non-metaphysically and thus of undermining Heidegger's narrative concerning Platonism as metaphysics and metaphysics as Platonism. In their readings of the Platonic dialogues, Plato emerges as a proto-phenomenologist whose attention to the ethical-political facticity of human beings leads to the acknowledgment of human finitude and of the fundamental elusiveness of Being. These Platonic critics of Heidegger thus invite us to see in the dialogues a lucid presentation of philosophic questioning rather than the beginning of distorting doctrinal teachings.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Welcome everyone to this meetup presented by Scott and Philip. Every second Monday we will get together to talk about this book (really more of a short booklet):
- Heidegger and His Platonic Critics by Antoine Pageau-St-Hilaire (2025, Cambridge University Press)
The format will be Philip's usual "accelerated live read" format. What this means is that each participant will be expected to read roughly 10-15 pages before each session. Each participant will have the option of picking a few paragraphs they especially want to focus on. We will then do a live read on the paragraphs that the participants found most interesting when they did the assigned reading.
People who have not done the reading are welcome to attend this meetup. However if you want to TALK during the meetup it is essential that you do the reading. We mean it! It is essential that the direction of the conversation be influenced only by people who have actually done the reading. You may think you are so brilliant and wonderful that you can come up with great points even if you do not do the reading. You probably are brilliant and wonderful - no argument there. But you still have to do the reading if you want to talk in this meetup. REALLY.
Please note that this is a "raise hands" meetup and has a highly structured format, not an anarchy-based one. This is partly for philosophical reasons: We want to discourage a simple-minded rapid fire "gotcha!" approach to philosophy. But our highly structured format is also for disability related reasons that Philip can explain if required.
Here is the reading schedule (pdf here):
- Sept 15th – "Introduction", up to page 18
- Sept 29th – "Strauss’s Zetetic Platonism", up to p. 28
- Oct 13th – "Gadamer’s Dialogical Platonism" up to p. 43
- Oct 27th – "Patočka’s Negative Platonism" & "Conclusion: Heidegger and the Plato Who Could Have Been", up to p. 64
After that we will be done and Scott and I will start another meetup on another book. The Pageau-St-Hilaire book (booklet?) is very short and we will only be reading it for 4 sessions.
Welcome! And enjoy!
19 attendees
Past events
6956
