Portland Free Philosophy Lectures and Discussions

2. We'll have a look at Breton and Soupault's founding Surrealist work, The Magnetic Fields*.* See these links for excerpts and a review:
First excerpt, Second excerpt, Poem review

3. We may make comparisons between Surrealism and two 'sister' movements: Dadaism and Cubism.

On Dada:
Dadaist poems of Hugo Ball (read by Christian Bök)
Tristan Tzara's Dadaist play Antipyrine (1916) and Dada Manifesto (1918)

On Cubism:
On Wallace Stevens' cubist poem Thirteen ways of looking at a blackbird (1917)
Dali's (1929) vs. Picasso's (1937) portrait of Paul Éluard

Some discussion questions:
What are Surrealism's basic premises? What are its basic artistic methods and techniques?
How did the movement emerge from Dadaism and where does it differ from Cubism?
How does Surrealism compare with Bataille's thinking from the 1920s and 30s, and why was he initially attracted to the movement?
What precipitated Bataille's eventual break with André Breton?

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You can find all texts in the Google folder linked at the BOTTOM of this description (also the Zoom link) -- scroll all the way down 👇

For notes and commentary on the texts see my Bataille blog at this link:
https://sites.google.com/view/existentialism-and-its-critics/

Upcoming topics:
Jul 26: André Breton's Manifesto of Surrealism (1924)
Aug 2: Surrealism (cont'd)
Aug 9: Bataille and/vs Surrealism

Please take the time to read and reflect on the reading prior to the meeting. Everyone is welcome to attend, but speaking priority will be given to people who have read the text.

Future topics to be discussed:

• Deleuze with/against Bataille
• Eroticism and the 'logic' of transgression
• Foucault's "A Preface to Transgression"
• Bataille's reading of Hegel, the negative and general economy
• Derrida's "From Restricted to General Economy"

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ABOUT THIS GROUP
Bataille stands out as an eclectic, fascinating and controversial figure in the world of French letters. A contemporary of Sartre and Lacan, he combined ideas from diverse disciplines to create a unique position that he labeled 'base materialism' and which could equally be called 'ecstatic materialism'. Keeping outside the academic mainstream (he worked as a librarian), Bataille writes at the intersection of multiple disciplines including philosophy, psychoanalysis, sociology, mythology, and mystical theology. His works develop a libidinal economy, offer a critique of fascism and embrace marginal experiences in the style of the French poets. He is a formative precursor to the post-structuralist philosophers of the '60s -- and may well be more relevant in our time than ever.

We'll start with Bataille's early writings on Nietzsche and make our way through his important concepts over a number of weeks. We'll aim to understand Bataille's thought on its own terms as well as to place him in the context of the German thinkers that preceded him and the French philosophers who followed his lead. In view of Bataille's early relationship with Surrealism, the referenced artworks will spotlight this movement.

Note: Bataille's texts, while philosophically important, discuss difficult themes such as mortality, the unconscious, eroticism, primeval social practices, etc. Keep this in mind as you approach him, especially if this is your first experience with French philosophy.

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GROUP RULES

• Please spend 1-2 hours per week reading and preparing for the discussion.
• Keep your comments concise and relevant to the text.
• Please limit each comment to a maximum of 2-3 minutes. You're welcome to speak as many times as you wish.
• Virtual meeting courtesy: let's not interrupt each other and keep mics muted when not speaking.
• We'll focus the discussion with key passages and discussion questions. Be sure to bring your favorite passages, questions, comments, criticisms, etc.

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Join the Facebook group for more resources and discussion:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/755460079505498
If you have attended previous meetings, please fill out a brief survey at this link: https://forms.gle/tEMJ4tw2yVgnTsQD6

All readings can be found in this Google folder: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1VPRdvZYmUKBY3cSxD8xC8sTYtSEKBXDs

Zoom link:
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81251109319?pwd=R3hVQ2RqcVBvaHJwYnoxMFJ5OXJldz09

Art: from Breton's Manifesto of Surrealism (1924)

August 3 - We are reading NE VII.4. This chapter 4 attempts to answer the question of whether lacking self-control (aka incontinence or weakness of will) is a condition applicable to a specific weakness or temptation to an appetite (e.g., cigarette, alcohol, porn, cheesecake, ice cream, etc.) or whether it is a general weakness of one's character as a person. There are two "takes" in this chapter. Some scholars say the two takes pretty much say the same thing; others say they are different in content. Regardless, we will read 8 translations, giving us 16 takes in English.
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So far, we have read the first take, version A, last weekend. We will read Version B this coming weekend. That should give us plenty of material to discuss.
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My summary of chapter 3 can be found here to help you catch up to us. https://mega.nz/file/fu50RKRC#BT1rMXg2W3X-W0Fip2CDm0r-ViNIT5xVyrhWCV_wq9Q Bring your own questions about the text if you are interested in joining this Sunday's meeting.
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We are live-reading and discussing Aristotle's ~Nicomachean Ethics~, book VII, which is about troubleshooting the virtues.
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The prerequisite to this book is our answering for ourselves these questions from the prior books, to which we will briefly review:
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1. What is a virtue of character {ēthikē aretē}?
2. How does one come to acquire it? (E.g. [Aristotle’s], ambition, bravery, gentlemanliness, generosity, candor, …)
3. From a first-person perspective in being virtuous, how does one feel and what does one see (differently, discursively) in a given situation of everyday living?
4. From a third-person perspective, how is the virtuous person (of a specific virtue) to be characterized?
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The project's cloud drive is here, at which you'll find the reading texts, notes, and slideshows.

(* Robin Smith, author of SEP's 2022 entry "Aristotle's Logic," argues that Rhetoric should be part of the Organon.)

Whenever we do any human thing, we can either do it well or do it poorly. With instruments, we can do things either better, faster, and more; or worse, slower, and less. That is, with instruments they either augment or diminish our doings.

Do thinking and speaking (and writing and listening) require instruments? Yes. We do need physical instruments like microphones, megaphones, pens, papers, computers. But we also need mental instruments: grammar, vocabulary words, evidence-gathering techniques, big-picture integration methods, persuasion strategies. Thinking while sitting meditatively all day in a lotus position doesn't require much instrumentation of any kind, but thinking and speaking well in the sense of project planning, problem-solving, negotiating, arguing, deliberating--that is, the active doings in the world (whether romantic, social, commercial, or political)--do require well-honed mental instruments. That's the Organon in a nutshell.

Are you an up-and-coming human being, a doer, go-getter, achiever, or at least you're choosing to become one? You need to wield the Organon.

Join us.