What we’re about
Welcome to the Toronto Philosophy Meetup! This is a community 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, 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 Twitter and join our Discord.
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: https://www.meetup.com/The-Toronto-Philosophy-Meetup/pages/30522966/Other_Philosophy_Groups_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.
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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.
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"Realism, Neoliberalism, and Cooperation: Understanding the Debate" (1999) by Robert Jervis, published in International Security.
We will survey the entire paper, given that this will be our third meet-up on this paper.
Over many meetings, our group discussed John Mearsheimer's book "The Tragedy of Great Power Politics." Mearsheimer is an offensive realist in the arena of international relations.
Offensive realists hold that the international system lacks a referee, so each state must look out for itself by accumulating as much power as possible.
Is this approach theoretically prudent, explanatory and predictive with the respect to what states actually do?
The group decided to continue the discussion through the eyes of Robert Jervis, who wrote the 1999 article "Realism, Neoliberalism, and Cooperation: Understanding the Debate."
Here Jervis explains the differences between the realist and neoliberal approach to international relations.
Powerpoint slides will be presented, if you hadn't the time to read the linked article:
- https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Realism%2C-Neoliberalism%2C-and-Cooperation%3A-the-Debate-Jervis/a1313bc5ff446b3b1d028e1438b9b919f3e4d7f9
- Download the pdf by looking under the description and clicking on the white icon titled "academiccommons.colombia.edu".
Come join us.
Here's Jervis summary of his article:
"The study of conflict and cooperation has been an enduring task of scholars, with the most recent arguments being between realists and neoliberal institutionalists.
Most students of the subject believe that realists argue that international politics is characterized by great conflict and that institutions play only a small role. They also believe that neoliberals claim that cooperation is more extensive, in large part because institutions are potent. I do not think that this formulation of the debate is correct.
In the first section of this article, I argue that the realist–neoliberal disagreement over conflict is not about its extent but about whether it is unnecessary, given states’ goals. In this context we cannot treat realism as monolithic, but must distinguish between the offensive and defensive variants.
In the second section, I explain the disagreement in terms of what each school of thought believes would have to change to produce greater cooperation. This raises the question of institutions."
Upcoming events (4+)
See all- Ocularcentrism: Theoria as a Cultural Practice (with some Heidegger too)Link visible for attendees
"From being viewed as an activity performed in practical and political contexts, wisdom in fourth-century BC Athens came to be conceived in terms of theoria, or the wise man as a "spectator" of truth. This book examines how philosophers of the period articulated the new conception of knowledge and how cultural conditions influenced this development. It provides an interdisciplinary study of the attempts to conceptualize "theoretical" activity during a foundational period in the history of Western philosophy..."
Hello Everyone! Welcome to the next meetup series from Jen and Philip!
This time around we will be reading the book:
- Spectacles of Truth in Classical Greek Philosophy: Theoria in its Cultural Context (Oxford University Press 2009) by Andrea Wilson Nightingale
– A pdf is available here.
Our plan is to read the first part of Andrea Wilson Nightingale's book until we have a good sense of how she handles the theme of "Theoria" Then we will switch to another reading selection and try to get a sense of how Heidegger handles the theme of "Theoria".
For this, we will read the essay:
- "Decline and Fall: Ocularcentrism in Heidegger's Reading of the History of Metaphysics" by David Michael Levin, from the anthology Modernity and the Hegemony of Vision (1993) edited by David Michael Levin (See link for further info about the book.)
After we are finished with the David Michael Levin essay we will return to the Andrea Wilson Nightingale book and finish it.
After that, we may consider reading some of the original works by Heidegger that David Michael Levin mentions in his essay. And then we will be done!
The format will be our usual "accelerated live read". What this means is that each participant will be expected to read roughly 15-20 pages of text 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.
As always, this Sunday meetup will be three hours. During the first two hours we will talk in a very focused way on the chapter we have read. During this part of the meetup only people who have done the reading will be allowed to influence the direction of the conversation. So please do the reading if you intend to speak during the first 2 hours of this meetup. You might think this does not apply to you, but it does! It applies to you.
During the last hour (which we call "The Free for All") people can talk about absolutely anything related to philosophy. People who have not done the reading will be allowed to direct the conversation during this third hour.
Please note that in this meetup we will be actually doing philosophy and not merely absorbing philosophical ideas in a passive way. Part of what this means is that we will be trying to find flaws in the reasoning and in the mode of presenting ideas that our two authors engage in. We will also be trying to improve the ideas in question and perhaps proposing better alternatives. That is what philosophers do after all!
The READING SCHEDULE will be specified further as we get a sense of when it is best to start to incorporate the Heidegger aspects of the meetup.
For the April 20 reboot of the series, please read pages 52-60 of Chapter 1 "Theoria as a Cultural Practice":
- Elites as civic representatives p. 52
- Athenian festivals and the theoric gaze p. 54
For the May 4 meeting, please read the sections from pp 60-83:
- The politics of panhellenism p. 60
- Theoria in search of wisdom p. 63
- From traditional to philosophic theoria p. 68
- Inventing philosophic theoria p. 72
- Civic theoria in the Republic p. 74
- .......
NOTE: In this meetup, all technology-related issues are handled by Jen. So, if you cannot get into the meetup or are having other technology-related issues, there is no point contacting Philip. Philip is still trying to master the art of building a phone out of two tin cans and a string! : (
So don't contact Philip about technology, contact Jen instead and get some real answers!
- Spectacles of Truth in Classical Greek Philosophy: Theoria in its Cultural Context (Oxford University Press 2009) by Andrea Wilson Nightingale
- Live-Reading Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics – North American StyleLink visible for attendees
Let'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.
