Orange County Philosophy Discussion Group

Our big picture goal is to facilitate forming a community of intellectually aware and active communicators who have a passionate interest in living real, authentic lives based on the premise that the examined life is well worth living.

We have a social happy hour/dinner on the first Monday of the month at the Red Table. It's a fun way to get to know others and build friendships. Just bring your sense of humor and be prepared to connect.

On Friday evenings we've been featuring films followed by discussions. The films are usually thought stimulating, but sharing our different perspectives about what we viewed ranges from profound to hilarious.

On the last Thursday of the month, we get down to our shared love of philosophy. There is an assigned reading, often an entire book, a chapter in a book, or a series of manuscripts that we study and discuss. These discussions are deeper and are meant to engage and integrate our cognitive functions of fact discernment (empiricism), reasoning (logical calculating), valuing (morals/ethics), and appreciation of underlying invisible structure (appreciated through our facility of pattern recognition and articulation).

Also, we recognize and appreciate individual differences as a key component of how differently we can experience the world, and we work to make these underlying differences explicit.

Philosophy is so much more than logic and reason. It is learning to understand how we constructed our "worldview," how we see the world, and learning how to reconfigure and own this worldview through a disciplined approach that examines our assumptions and takes on different ways of viewing our life experience in a more empowered and authentic capacity.

Like much of meetup, we've had problems with "no shows" at limited attendance functions. This is when we have a limited number of seats available, the RSVP list shows full, many RSVPs don't "show," and we have a waitlist and empty seats at the table. We've solved this problem by asking participants to invest a couple of dollars when reserving a seat. This has completely solved the problem of "no shows."

What makes our group special is both our diversity and our intellectual honesty. We encourage the expression of all points of view and all are welcome to contribute their point of view. We also hold everyone accountable for their point of view and respectfully debate and question with the aim of reaching for a clearer understanding.

If this sounds like fun to you, please join us!