NYC Philosophy and Psychology Readers Community

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.

"To Have or To Be?" is one of the seminal books of the second half of the 20th century. His thesis is that two modes of existence struggle for the spirit of humankind: the having mode, which concentrates on material possessions, power, and aggression, and is the basis of the universal evils of greed, envy, and violence; and the being mode, which is based on love, the pleasure of sharing, and in productive activity. "To Have or To Be?" is nothing less than a manifesto for a new social and psychological revolution to save our threatened planet.

Join us to discuss this classic book over the course of 3-weeks!
Week 1 Sat 5/2 12:30pm-2:30pm The Seahorse Room @ Pier 57
Week 2 Sat 5/9 12:30pm-2:30pm The Seahorse Room @ Pier 57
Week 3 Sat 5/16 12:30pm-2:30pm The Seahorse Room @ Pier 57

Reading for Week 3
Part 3 (64 pages)

Join us for weekly discussions of French philosopher Henri Bergson's 1896 book on action-oriented perception, multiplicities of memory-images, and the virtual existence of the past.

Required reading for this meeting: Ch. I "Of the Selection of Images" pg. 43–76.

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: