NYC Philosophy and Psychology Readers Community Φ Ψ

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

We’ll read this text slowly and carefully, around 20 pages per week for about six months — over the colder months, as Schopenhauer would have wanted! It's not a live reading, so you'll need to spend the hour or so reading in advance of attending, this is a must.
We’ll be reading Volume 1 of his work. I’ll be using the Cambridge edition, and you can find a tentative schedule linked here.
We will also decide a lot of things, also if people can join mid way through, by voting with the existing group.

### 💬 Discussion Format

Our FAQ outlines how we generally run these sessions. Depending on group size, we may adjust — for example, adding breakout groups or rotating discussion leaders. If you’re interested in co-hosting, please reach out — that would be wonderful. Importantly I am not teaching this material, we are co-travelers exploring it together.

### 📬 Contact Us

Have questions or feedback? Reach out via our Meetup message to me.

I’m genuinely excited to read this with you. I’ve read some Schopenhauer before and listened to this work on audiobook, but I believe a real, close read together will be transformative.

Kind Regards,
Ryan

The question of the meaning of life has boggled humanity for perhaps as long as we have had the ability to communicate. Of course, we can always take a blind leap of faith across the abyss into just choosing a meaning to our lives among the many dogmatic options which humanity presents to us. But what if we are unable to delude ourselves into believing that which we attempt to have faith in? If we cannot muster the clay to build the necessary cognitive dissidence then how do we deal with the problem of meaning? It is this paradox and the anxiety it produces which Camus wrestles with in his philosophy of Absurdism. The absurd is the realization that there is no ultimate meaning to life and yet we all take life so seriously everyday and seem to produce some type of meaning for ourselves nonetheless. In this week we will complete our dive into Camus by reading The Rebel in two parts. Join us as we discuss this work together and grapple with the paradox of the human condition.

Participants should read the entire reading before attending this in person meeting. I will be reading from this version here and a free copy can be found here. We will read Part 1, 2, and the beginning of part 3 ending with the section entitled The Deicides for this week (p. 13-148). ***We will be meeting in the Seahorse classroom***

For questions please send me a message or post to meetup.

Best,

Brian

Byung-Chul Han’s The Agony of Eros offers a striking diagnosis of what he calls the disappearance of “the Other” in contemporary life. In a culture saturated with self-optimization, endless visibility, and the pursuit of frictionless interaction, Han argues that our capacity for eros—our ability to be transformed by that which truly stands outside us—has withered. The result is a world that feels increasingly flat, narcissistic, and emotionally drained.

In this single-session discussion, we’ll explore Han’s central idea that eros requires otherness, and that without this tension, both love and meaning begin to evaporate. We’ll consider how his argument touches on desire, depression, narcissism, embodiment, and the struggle to encounter another person in a genuine way.

Required Reading
The Agony of Eros by Byung-Chul Han (about 53 pages). Available here.

Optional Recommended Materials
If you want to deepen your experience or bring richer perspectives to the conversation, the following works pair beautifully with Han’s themes. None of them are required.
Film
• Melancholia (2011), dir. Lars von Trier
A visually stunning meditation on depression, desire, and world-loss. Several scenes resonate strongly with Han’s critique of narcissism and the collapse of relational depth. Available for rent on streaming platforms.
Music
• Tristan and Isolde (Wagner)
Particularly the Prelude and Act II. A story driven by longing, ecstatic otherness, and the tension between desire and annihilation—core motifs that illuminate Han’s notion of eros as transformative encounter.
Philosophy
• Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, “Lordship and Bondage” (Master/Slave Dialectic)
Hegel's account of how recognition, dependence, and otherness shape the self—deep background to Han’s claim that we can only find ourselves through encounters with the Other. 8 pages in the Phenomenology of Spirit Chapter IV: “Self-Consciousness” - Section A: “Independence and Dependence of Self-Consciousness: Lordship and Bondage.”

Meeting Info
Saturday 12/27, 12:30pm–2:30pm
The Oyster Room @ Pier 57
Required Reading:
The Agony of Eros (entire book)
All other materials are optional.
You are welcome to bring insights from them—or simply enjoy the core text on its own.

Rules for Our Group
1. Be Courteous
Respectful disagreement is encouraged; condescension isn’t.
2. Be Concise
Keep comments focused and allow space for others to join in.
3. Do the Reading
If you haven't finished the week’s reading, you’re welcome to attend and listen, but participation in discussion will be limited out of respect for those who prepared.

Looking forward to discussing these themes with all of you!
—Brent

Join us for weekly discussions of Aristotle's incredibly influential musings on substance, causation, hylomorphism, and other fun abstractions.

Reading for this meeting: Book IV (Gamma)

Make sure to come having already read this as well as the preceding books of the Metaphysics. The focus of this meeting is to help each other understand Aristotle's text and its main arguments, so please try to avoid bringing up other ideas if they are not to that end. Feel free to talk about whatever you want after the official meeting time ends.

I'll be reading the 1999 translation by Joe Sachs. Feel free to use any translation or edition—comparing differing translations can help with getting a feel for the meanings of terms in the original Greek. There are several versions for free online, including this one.

We'll be meeting at Farm.One, which a brewery and indoor farm in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn.

This event is free, but we're still sort of socially obligated to purchase something (need not be alcohol), and Farm.One is a cool place that we should support! The space is also a quiet cafe between 10am and 12pm, so get there early if you prefer coffee to beer (and maybe to finish up the reading)!