NYC Philosophy and Psychology Readers Community

Hi everyone!

Welcome back to the fiction series!

Please join us on May 21st to discuss the acclaimed novella The Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk by Nikolai Leskov. This piece will be accompanied by Walter Benjamin’s essay “The Storyteller: Reflections on the Work of Nikolai Leskov.” A bit on the nose for an accompanying piece, but it will round out the focal themes in the novella.

A wonderful introduction to Russian short fiction, The Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk follows bored merchant’s wife Katerina Lvovna Izmailova as she descends into a righteous, passionate, and murderous madness after she begins an affair with a laborer, Sergei, whilst her husband is away on business. A parodical rumination on the unmoored forces of sexual passion and power, this novella is engaging, fashionable, and gruesome.

In the midst of contemporary social anxieties that marry (ha) marriage and horror (see films like Ready or Not and the recent Netflix hit Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen), Leskov comes in with a heavy hand.

We will be reading both the novella and the Benjamin piece in their entirety. Both are required for the meetup! Please feel free to use the linked versions below:

Lets take one more dive into Nag Hammadi Library

These two books called gospels are not narrative of Jesus' life and stories of his miracles. Instead Gospel of Thomas is collection of wise saying attributed to Jesus Christ. It focuses mainly on people recognising their divine origin, through spiritual inquiry and discovery.

Gospel of truth is similar in theme and initiates readers to awaken from their forgetfulness of God and remove the veil of ignorance to release damping weight of ignorance that rules in our consciousness.

On a time frame of Nag Hammadi: When the papyrus that these codexes are written on was examined, it firmly placed writing of these books between 350-400 AD.
However, the composition is usually dated as much older somewhere between 120-150 AD. They were thought of as heretical even in the ancient times therefore it is assumed they might be younger then the original Mathew, Luke, Mark and John gospels.

In this session we will read

💎 Gospel of Thomas (3 translations in the free PDF)
choose your adventure:
- Peterson, Meyer translation pg 74-80
- Lambdin translation 81-88
- Peterson, Robinson translation 89-101
💎 Gospel of Truth
pages 24 -30

*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.

In The Need For Roots Weil diagnoses the malaise at the heart of modern life: uprootedness, from the past and from community. Written towards the end of World War II for the Free French Army, Weil's work is an indispensable and perpetually intriguing text for readers and students of philosophy everywhere. The book discusses the political, cultural and spiritual currents that ought to be nurtured so that people have access to sources of energy which will help them lead fulfilling, joyful and morally good lives.

Join us to discuss this classic book over the course of 4-weeks!
Week 1 Sat 5/23 12:30pm-2:30pm The Seahorse Room @ Pier 57
Week 2 Sat 5/30 12:30pm-2:30pm The Seahorse Room @ Pier 57
Week 3 Sat 6/6 12:30pm-2:30pm @Reading Room in Bryant Park
Week 4 12pm-2pm Sat 6/13 The Oyster Room @ Pier 57

Reading for Week 1
Read up until "Industrial Uprootedness" section (34 pages)