Socrates Café in Seoul (소크라테스 카페 in 서울)

Hi, thanks for visiting our meetup page.

I'm generally interested in philosophy since it helps to understand not only the cause of the state of affairs but also because it tends to go further to understand the truth of how such causes unfolded in the first place, as well as the impact of the state of affairs on the lives of human beings that we are.

For the last 4 years since 2019, we have hosted numerous discussions on topics that are familiar to our everyday life from such as the meaning of "self" or "blue colour," to things that are beyond our perception such as "God,"  "Love," or "Justice".

Is "blue colour" really blue by the way? Where does colour comes from?
Is there such a thing as "self"? Even though we are inclined to say 'Yes,' surely there are significant parts of who we are is beyond our control and impersonal? such as our body, and the kind of ingrained culture, knowledge and perceptions?

Philosophy has been also known as a great pastime activity as early as the time of Socrates for we know in Plato's book Symposium, in which Socrates, Aristophanes (comic playwright) and their usual entourage of associates gathering together at the dinner party. And they got engaged with philosophical discussion about "what Love is" while also helping themselves with wine at Aristophanes' dinner party.

So what is philosophy?

Broadly speaking philosophy can be seen as,

First, Philosophy is a highly inspiring and thought-provoking tool that allows us to freely explore concepts, values, and objects in both incorporeal and corporeal forms at a deeper level. By engaging with both ancient and contemporary conversations with great thinkers, and applying the methods and perspectives derived from these discussions, we can better understand and address current issues and problems in our lives.

Secondly, this field of study or more accurately, this "activity" or "tradition" is rooted in solving problems. Philosophy can be fittingly refer to as plumbing, the term 'Mary Midgley' used to explain what the activity of philosophy is, and describing philosopher as a plumber. So the idea is that when the blockage occurs in our sink pipe (our way of thinking), this could potentially flood the whole sink basin if not the whole apartment. And as a result, the required function of sink is no longer working, and therefore our life is deeply affected by it. And as a result, we cannot continue our way of life the way it's supposed to be, the way we want to be. So then, we need a plumbing by plumber. We could also be a self sufficient plumber ourselves too or use some help from other plumbing methods and so on.

But the core idea here is that, the purpose of true philosophy rises with the encountering with existing problems and the need of solving the problem. And this core aspect of the purpose of philosophy is why I do feel strongly that I want to learn and practice this activity and tradition. So that not only can I deal with my own problems, but also problems of our community, and the world.

I cannot do it by myself, I need a group of like minded people to share ideas and receive feedbacks and it is this mutual reciprocity of hearing others ideas and speaking mine that I can improve my own understanding. So if you are interested in sharing thoughts and learning other perspectives, feel free to drop by one of our meet-ups. You are always welcome.


-Ben-