NYC Philosophy and Psychology Readers Community

Let's read and meet to discuss some of Gilles Deleuze's writings on virtuality!

(NOT to be confused with "virtual reality," the "metaverse," etc. Gilles is talking ontology.)

Note:
This group is currently underway. I have closed it for RSVP for now. I may open it in the future if we need more attendees. I am managing the RSVP's off meetup for this event so the attendees here are not an accurate reflection of what we have, we currently have about 15 people, if there are dropouts or changes I can reopen for new people.

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Hi Folks,

Please join us for a slow and close reading of Arthur Schopenhauer’s magnum opus, The World as Will and Representation.

Schopenhauer is incredibly important as:

• One of the first major Western philosophers to deeply integrate Eastern ideas (after studying the Upanishads and Buddhist thought)
• One of the earliest Western philosophers to build a comprehensive atheistic worldview
• A major critic of Kantian philosophy, reshaping Kant’s “thing-in-itself” into his own concept of the Will
• An outspoken opponent of Hegel, his contemporary and rival professor at the University of Berlin
• The primary philosophical influence on Nietzsche, who regarded Schopenhauer as his great educator

Schopenhauer introduces the Will as the thing-in-itself — the inner reality underlying all appearances. His metaphysics explores how human desire drives suffering, and how we can transcend it through compassion, selflessness, and creative expression, especially through art.

### 📖 Apply to Join

This text is challenging but rewarding. To get the most out of it, you’ll need:

• Some background in Kantian philosophy (especially the principle of sufficient reason, the phenomenal / noumenal divide and Kant's "architectonic"); familiarity with Eastern thought is a plus
• The ability to closely read and interpret complex philosophical arguments
• The communication and social skills to express ideas clearly in discussion

You can apply to join by first RSVP'ing to this event, then filling out the Google Form survey linked on this event's location page — I’ll review responses personally.

### 📚 Reading & Participation

Let's take one more dive into Nag Hammadi Library and read the secret book of John which tells the story of origins of the universe. This book also introduces creation of Sophia so we will take a look at the book called Sophia of Jesus Christ.

In this session we will also take a little time to discuss short excerpt of Gospel of Mary Magdalene that we have. It is only 2.5 pages but brings new perspective on life of Jesus and his message.

In this meeting we will discuss:

💎 Apocryphon (secret book) of John (pages 64-73)*
💎 Sophia of Jesus Christ (pages 138-142)*
💎 Gospel of Mary (pages 294-296)*

*page numbers refer to the free PDF edition link here

How does language come to have meaning and can we trust natural language to be a reliable vehicle for truth? For many in the early analytic tradition, the answer to the meaning of language is intimately related to a correspondence theory of truth where one needs to painstakingly tie words to their reference objects in the world. For these philosophers, logic is the correct tool in order to tame natural language and train it to be a reliable vehicle for truth. For Quine (1908-2000), this is simply not the right approach to language. Quine is known for his blistering critiques of the logical positivists and the early analytic philosophers, calling into question the very idea of a proposition and challenging the analytic/synthetic distinction which had been evolving since Kant. In Word and Object, he tackles philosophy of language, introducing his indeterminacy of translation thesis that there isn't even theoretically a unique way to translate correctly from one language to another. This rattles the very heart of the metaphysical project of tying down language to objects in the world since we can't even seem to tie one language to another in a unique way. He also argues that objects are simply abstract concepts we invent in order to make sense of our experiences, cautioning us against reification. Quine is no anarchist though, he has a deep respect for science and emphasizes an empirical approach to language grounded in the social practices of communities. Maybe we cannot attain absolute certainty but we can certainly design successful social practices to probe and try to understand the world around us. Join us as we explore the nature of language, truth, and knowledge over the course of four weeks with Quine as our guide.