
グループの特徴
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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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.
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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.
Raymond Carver was one of America’s preeminent short story writers during the 1970s and 1980s — a time that witnessed a great renaissance of the art — and an accomplished poet publishing several highly acclaimed volumes. Carver was born into a poverty-stricken family at the tail-end of the Depression. He was married and the father of two before he was 20, and held a number of low-paying jobs: he “picked tulips, pumped gas, swept hospital corridors, swabbed toilets, [and] managed an apartment complex,” according to a profile by Bruce Weber in the New York Times Magazine. Not coincidentally, “of all the writers at work today, Carver may have [had] the most distinct vision of the working class”.
Rejecting the more experimental and postmodern fiction of the 60s and 70s, he pioneered a style of stark, precisionist realism in American literature, heading the line of so-called "dirty realists" or "K-mart realists". Set in trailer parks and shopping malls, they are stories of working-class people that turn on seemingly insignificant details. Carver writes with unflinching exactness and meticulous economy, suddenly bringing a life into focus in a similar way to the paintings of Edward Hopper.
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This is a series of occasional meetups to discuss short stories by various authors. We started in 2023 and generally meet every other Sunday evening. Authors we have read include Haruki Murakami, Anton Chekhov, Alice Munro, Feng Menglong, James Baldwin, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Can Xue, and James Joyce.
This time we will discuss the last 2 short stories from Raymond Carver's celebrated 1981 collection What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, "a haunting meditation on love, loss, and companionship, and finding one’s way through the dark" (from the publisher). In the famous title story "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love", two couples drink and talk about love (are there allusions to Plato's Symposium?) and in "One More Thing", a man argues with his wife and is told to leave.
Please read the 2 stories in advance (~23 pages in total) and bring your thoughts, reactions, queries, and favourite passages to share with us at the discussion. A pdf copy of the reading is available here.
Stories by Carver we've previously discussed in this group:
今後のイベント (4+)件
すべて見る- Nietzsche: The Gay Science [Session 47]参加者に表示されるリンク
While the Walter Kaufmann translation is preferred, a link to the free Cambridge translation is here. For this Meetup, we will read aphorisms 177-190, and discuss them one at a time and get as far as we get, carrying forward any undiscussed aphorisms to the following week.
It’s 1882, and a friend has just given you a copy and recommendation of a book by a former professor of philology named Friedrich Nietzsche. Your friend says that he seems to be a philosopher of some sort, even though he doesn’t write like one, and in this book he argues, among a lot of other provocative things, that God Is dead!
This Is the beginner’s mind that this Meetup will take with this book. You may know his contemporaries and antecedents, but you’re here to share YOUR thoughts, not those of subsequent critics.
Recordings and AI summaries of previous sessions are available here.
Suggested texts: The Portable Neitzsche, edited by Walter Kaufmann and The Basic Writings of Nietzsche, edited by Walter KaufmannSyllabus (titles are linked to free PDF’s, most of which require a free academia.edu account)
The Gay Science (academia.edu)
Beyond Good and Evil (academia.edu)*
On The Genealogy of Morals (academia.edu)*
The Case of Wagner*
Twilight of the Idols** (academia.edu)
The Antichrist**
Ecce Homo*
Nietzsche Contra Wagner***The Basic Writings of Nietzsche, edited by Walter Kaufmann
**Walter Kaufmann’s, The Portable Nietzsche - Kant: Critique of Practical Reason (Week 4 – Dialectic of Pure Practical Reason)参加者に表示されるリンク
What does 'morality' mean, and what does it mean that we are moral? Kant's classic of meta-ethics, the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, tries to address these questions while working towards inaugurating a new approach to metaphysics. Kant's ethical project is broad, covering problems of personal responsibility, virtue, rights, cosmopolitanism, world peace, and religion.
No prior experience with Kant is necessary.
Our Kant reading continues with the Critique of Practical Reason. We'll be covering Book II (Dialectic) at this meetup.
pp 226 - 258 (Gregor, Cambridge Practical Philosophy)
pp 137 - 186 (Pluhar)
pp 5:107 - 148 (Complete Works)Note: Meetings focus on developing a common language and friendship through studying Kant. The host will provide an interpretation of Kant; other interpretations will not be discussed until later in the meeting. Additional interpretations, topics, and questions can be addressed through the Jitsi chat feature.
Reading Schedule:
Week 1:
Preface and Introduction
pp 139 - 149 (Gregor, Cambridge Practical Philosophy)
pp 3 - 25 (Pluhar)
pp 5:3 - 16 (Complete Works)Week 2:
Book I (Analytic) - Chapter I
pp 153 - 186 (Gregor, Cambridge Practical Philosophy)
pp 29 - 77 (Pluhar)
pp 5:19 - 57 (Complete Works)Week 3:
Book I (Analytic) - Chapters II and III
pp 186 - 225 (Gregor, Cambridge Practical Philosophy)
pp 77 - 135 (Pluhar)
pp 5:57 - 106 (Complete Works)Week 4:
Book II (Dialectic)
pp 226 - 258 (Gregor, Cambridge Practical Philosophy)
pp 137 - 186 (Pluhar)
pp 5:107 - 148 (Complete Works)Week 5:
Doctrine of Method
pp 261 - 271 (Gregor, Cambridge Practical Philosophy)
pp 189 - 205 (Pluhar)
pp 5:151 - 163 (Complete Works)There are numerous editions (and free translations available online if you search), but this collection contains all of Kant's Practical Philosophy in translation:
https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Philosophy-Cambridge-Works-Immanuel/dp/0521654084/
PDF: https://antilogicalism.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/kant-practical-philosophy.pdf
- Kant FTΦ: Umberto Eco’s Interpretation and Overinterpretation (Live Reading)参加者に表示されるリンク
We'll be continuing our reading from the beginning of lecture 2, "Overinterpreting texts", on page 45.
Umberto Eco attempts to sail between Scylla and Charybdis: is interpretation completely open-ended, or must we connect things to the "author's intent"?
We'll read at least Eco's lectures in the collection Interpretation and Overinterpretation. We may determine later if we want to read some of the other collected responses.
Our surface goal of this meeting is to understand the author (rather than criticize). Our secondary goal is to formulate a rough "theory" of interpretation that can be applied to any other reading we do.
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Interpretation-Overinterpretation-Tanner-Lectures-Values/dp/0521402271/
PDF: https://annas-archive.org/md5/5b2a48f56279dfe34078d7ba4ae842a7
Note: Kant FTΦ (Friends Through Philosophy) is a group of individuals who have connected over reading Kant (and other philosophers).
This meeting will focus on regular attendees' interests. We will frequently reference Kant and other philosophers. Discussions may involve shared notions that have developed over time. If you are not a regular attendee and feel lost in the conversation, it may be a byproduct of being newer to the meetings: don't hesitate to ask for clarification.