The Toronto Philosophy Meetup

We continue exploring Surrealism, including Georges Bataille's relationship and eventual break with the movement. Readings:

1. This week we read the second part of André Breton's Manifesto of Surrealism (1924) -- pp. 29-47 in the University of Michigan edition.

2. We'll have a look at Breton and Soupault's founding Surrealist work, The Magnetic Fields*.* See these links for excerpts and a review:
First excerpt, Second excerpt, Poem review

3. We may make comparisons between Surrealism and two 'sister' movements: Dadaism and Cubism.

On Dada:
Dadaist poems of Hugo Ball (read by Christian Bök)
Tristan Tzara's Dadaist play Antipyrine (1916) and Dada Manifesto (1918)

On Cubism:
On Wallace Stevens' cubist poem Thirteen ways of looking at a blackbird (1917)
Dali's (1929) vs. Picasso's (1937) portrait of Paul Éluard

Some discussion questions:
What are Surrealism's basic premises? What are its basic artistic methods and techniques?
How did the movement emerge from Dadaism and where does it differ from Cubism?
How does Surrealism compare with Bataille's thinking from the 1920s and 30s, and why was he initially attracted to the movement?
What precipitated Bataille's eventual break with André Breton?

==========
You can find all texts in the Google folder linked at the BOTTOM of this description (also the Zoom link) -- scroll all the way down 👇

For notes and commentary on the texts see my Bataille blog at this link:
https://sites.google.com/view/existentialism-and-its-critics/

Upcoming topics:
Jul 26: André Breton's Manifesto of Surrealism (1924)
Aug 2: Surrealism (cont'd)
Aug 9: Bataille and/vs Surrealism

Please take the time to read and reflect on the reading prior to the meeting. Everyone is welcome to attend, but speaking priority will be given to people who have read the text.

Future topics to be discussed:

• Deleuze with/against Bataille
• Eroticism and the 'logic' of transgression
• Foucault's "A Preface to Transgression"
• Bataille's reading of Hegel, the negative and general economy
• Derrida's "From Restricted to General Economy"

***

ABOUT THIS GROUP
Bataille stands out as an eclectic, fascinating and controversial figure in the world of French letters. A contemporary of Sartre and Lacan, he combined ideas from diverse disciplines to create a unique position that he labeled 'base materialism' and which could equally be called 'ecstatic materialism'. Keeping outside the academic mainstream (he worked as a librarian), Bataille writes at the intersection of multiple disciplines including philosophy, psychoanalysis, sociology, mythology, and mystical theology. His works develop a libidinal economy, offer a critique of fascism and embrace marginal experiences in the style of the French poets. He is a formative precursor to the post-structuralist philosophers of the '60s -- and may well be more relevant in our time than ever.

We'll start with Bataille's early writings on Nietzsche and make our way through his important concepts over a number of weeks. We'll aim to understand Bataille's thought on its own terms as well as to place him in the context of the German thinkers that preceded him and the French philosophers who followed his lead. In view of Bataille's early relationship with Surrealism, the referenced artworks will spotlight this movement.

Note: Bataille's texts, while philosophically important, discuss difficult themes such as mortality, the unconscious, eroticism, primeval social practices, etc. Keep this in mind as you approach him, especially if this is your first experience with French philosophy.

***

GROUP RULES

• Please spend 1-2 hours per week reading and preparing for the discussion.
• Keep your comments concise and relevant to the text.
• Please limit each comment to a maximum of 2-3 minutes. You're welcome to speak as many times as you wish.
• Virtual meeting courtesy: let's not interrupt each other and keep mics muted when not speaking.
• We'll focus the discussion with key passages and discussion questions. Be sure to bring your favorite passages, questions, comments, criticisms, etc.

***

Join the Facebook group for more resources and discussion:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/755460079505498
If you have attended previous meetings, please fill out a brief survey at this link: https://forms.gle/tEMJ4tw2yVgnTsQD6

All readings can be found in this Google folder: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1VPRdvZYmUKBY3cSxD8xC8sTYtSEKBXDs

Zoom link:
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81251109319?pwd=R3hVQ2RqcVBvaHJwYnoxMFJ5OXJldz09

Art: from Breton's Manifesto of Surrealism (1924)

Please note: This is an extremely difficult text, and we are now in its most difficult sections. While everyone is of course welcome to attend, our discussion might be of little use or interest to those who haven’t read the preceding sections and/or those unfamiliar with Husserl’s technical language.

For this session, we will be discussing section 10 (pp. 122-141) of Derrida's Introduction to Husserl's Origin of Geometry. Please read the selection before our meeting if you would like to join the discussion. In addition, I would also like to return to the latter half of section 7 (pp. 94-107) to wrap up the discussion there of the transcendental sense of death. Although I will try to provide a trajectory for our discussion, I encourage participants to share and discuss any passages that are of particular interest to them.

Tentative reading schedule:

• July 20: section 9 (pp. 97-121)
• Aug. 3: section 10 (pp. 122-141)
• Aug. 17: section 11 (pp. 141-153)
• Aug. 31: Introduction to Voice and Phenomenon (pp. 3-14)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

GENERAL REMARKS:

In the Introduction to Husserl’s Origin of Geometry (1962), one could argue that Derrida has arrived at the doorstep to what will later be called deconstruction. Still operating “within” phenomenology, he is nevertheless pushing at its limits. The crucial limit for this early work will be the question of history (which anticipates Derrida’s later thinking of the “trace”.) While Husserlian phenomenology explicitly treats history as a regional ontology (a subset of beings with its own peculiar characteristics), Derrida will radicalize several cues in Husserl’s later work in order to generalize history beyond any rigid delimitation. With history unbound in this way, phenomenology’s project and method will be deformed at its very core, and yet it will only be through phenomenology that this new thought will arise. As Derrida writes in Of Grammatology (1967), “a thought of the trace can no more break with a transcendental phenomenology than be reduced to it” (p. 62). We will follow the complicated relationship between phenomenology and its limit through an examination of this problem of history as it relates to the interrelated themes of ideality, science, intersubjectivity, and language.

This text, which adheres to the conventions of standard academic writing and lacks what will later become his characteristic style, shows Derrida at his most prosaic and most “philosophical.” It will be of interest to: 1) those who wish to approach Derrida from a more philosophical (rather than “literary”) perspective; and 2) those wanting to investigate the “origin of deconstruction” prior to Derrida’s breakout year of 1967.

A copy of the text can be found in the google folder here. As far as I know, this edition is the only available English translation, and it is unfortunately riddled with infelicities and outright mistranslations. We should always be grateful to our translators, but this translation makes it difficult at times to follow Derrida’s arguments. If you are able to read French, I highly recommend reading this text in the original. Otherwise, I will try my best to point out translation errors as we go along. (I would also not recommend Leavey’s preface, as it will not be particularly helpful for our purposes.)

Please note: this text will have almost nothing to do with actual geometry. In his original essay, Husserl is providing a phenomenological analysis of the foundations of geometry, in particular, the way in which something like geometry can arise from “pre-geometrical” experience. Derrida, in turn, is trying to radicalize some of the arguments found in Husserl’s essay in order to pose some fundamental problems to the project of phenomenology. Therefore, despite the title, our discussion will be centered around Husserlian phenomenology rather than geometry. Familiarity with Husserl’s phenomenology will be extremely helpful, and almost a prerequisite, to understand Derrida’s essay. I will do my best to summarize some of Husserl’s key arguments as they come up for those less acquainted with his work.

"Anxiety looms large in historical works of philosophy and psychology. It is an affect, philosopher Bettina Bergo argues, subtler and more persistent than our emotions, and points toward the intersection of embodiment and cognition. While scholars who focus on the work of luminaries as Freud, Levinas, or Kant often study this theme in individual works, they seldom draw out the deep and significant connections between various approaches to anxiety.

This volume provides a sweeping study of the uncanny career of anxiety in 19th and 20th century European thought. Anxiety threads itself through European intellectual life, beginning in receptions of Kant's transcendental philosophy and running into Levinas' phenomenology; it is a core theme in Schelling, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche... This volume opens new windows onto philosophers who have never yet been put into dialogue, providing a rigorous intellectual history as it connects themes across two centuries, and unearths the deep roots of our own present-day "age of anxiety."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Welcome everyone to the next meetup series that Jen and Philip are presenting starting May 25! Scroll down 👇👇👇👇👇 to see the regularly updated reading schedule.

This time around we will be presenting the book:

• Anxiety: A Philosophical History (Oxford University Press 2020) by Bettina Bergo (See link for further info about the book from the publisher)
• Secondary text: The Philosophy of Life: German Lebensphilosophie 1870-1920 (Oxford University Press 2023) by Frederick C. Beiser. (See reading assignment and pdf below)
• The book we will read after Frederick C. Beiser’s book, for August 17 3rd hour discussion, is Andrew Bowie_Schelling and Modern European Philosophy_An Introduction https://www.amazon.com/Schelling-Modern-European-Philosophy-Introduction-ebook/dp/B08JD17TBZ/ref=sr_1_1?

This is a three hour meetup. For the first two hours we will stick very closely to the Bergo book. For THE FINAL HOUR we will be introducing a new way of doing things called "Filling in the Background". Bergo covers several philosophers. During the final hour we will read works by or about whatever philosopher she happens to be focussing on.

For example, Bergo starts with Kant and so for the first few sessions we will study Kant in an introductory way during the "Filling in the Background" final hour. When Bergo moves on to Schelling we will study some Schelling in the "Filling in the Background" final hour, and so on.

When we are covering Kant in the "Filling in the Background" section we will be referring to three books, one by Lucy Allais, one by Graham Bird and one by Kant himself. I (Philip) will do everything I can to make this clear and not confusing. But Kant is hard and the temptation to ignore real Kant and settle for a simplified cartoonish version of Kant's thought is too great. We need all three books to help us resist this temptation.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

A comment on what this meetup is and what it is not:

Bergo is looking at several European philosophers starting with Kant and is exploring the concept of Anxiety as a concept within philosophy. Obviously this will have some bearing on how anxiety as a word and as a concept functions within contemporary medicalized discourses. But in this meetup we will stick very closely to the philosophical aspects of the concept of anxiety. The occasional personal anecdote might be helpful, but only if it is given for the specific purpose of illuminating our understanding of Kant, Schelling, Schopenhauer and the other philosophers Bergo is writing about.

In a nutshell, this is not a support group about anxiety related mental health issues.

But hopefully it will be of interest to everyone, including those who are exploring the more medicalized versions of the concept of anxiety. Jen and Philip wish nothing but the very best to anyone suffering from a medical version of anxiety; but this meetup is about the philosophy version of this concept.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Even people who have not done the reading are welcome to attend this meetup. However if you want to talk during the meetup it is essential that you do the reading. We mean it! It is essential that the direction of the conversation be influenced only by people who have actually done the reading. The Bergo book is magnificent and we will be reading many of the all-time great philosophers, so do yourself a favour and do the reading. You will get so much more out of this meetup if you do. You may think you are so brilliant and wonderful that you can come up with great points even if you do not do the reading. You probably are brilliant and wonderful — no argument there! But you still have to do the reading if you want to talk in this meetup. Really.

To make it easier to do all the reading, please note also that the Bergo book is available as an audiobook. In an "Elbows Up" spirit, here is a place where you can buy the audiobook where the majority of the money you spend goes to a Canadian bookstore — message Philip to find out how to make that work.

Anxiety Audiobook | Libro.fm – https://libro.fm/audiobooks/9781705281406-anxiety

Incidentally, the very best translation of Kierkegaard's book – https://www.indigo.ca/en-ca/the-concept-of-anxiety/9781631490040.html

is also available as an audiobook too. Perhaps this will help people to keep up with the readings.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Jen and Philip have a very clear division of labour. If you have issues or concerns about the choice of texts or the pace of the reading or other "content" concerns, please contact Philip. If you have technology related questions please contact Jen. If you have complaints please direct them only to Philip.

Please note that this is a "raise hands" meetup and has a highly structured format, not an anarchy-based one. This is partly for philosophical reasons: We want to discourage a simple rapid fire "gotcha!" approach to philosophy. But our highly structured format is also for disability related reasons that Philip can explain if required.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

In both portions of the meetup, the format will be our usual "ACCELERATED LIVE READ". What this means is that each participant will be expected to read roughly 15-40 pages of text before each session. Each participant will have the option of picking a few paragraphs they especially want to focus on. We will then do a live read on the paragraphs that the participants found most interesting when they did the assigned reading. In general, shorter passages will be assigned in Bergo so we can go slowly through Bergo. But longer passages will be assigned in the "Filling in the background" section.

THE READING SCHEDULE

• For the 6th session (Aug 3), please read pages 85-96 in the Bergo. In the last hour of the session we are reading The Philosophy of Life: German Lebensphilosophie 1870-1920 (2023) by Frederick C. Beiser. Please read pages 38-81 in the Beiser (pdf here).
• For the 5th session (July 20), please read pages 85-96 in the Bergo. In the last hour of the session we are reading The Philosophy of Life: German Lebensphilosophie 1870-1920 (2023) by Frederick C. Beiser. Please read pages 19-38 in the Beiser (pdf here).
• For the 4th session (July 6), please read pages 64-85 in the Bergo. In the last hour of the session we are starting The Philosophy of Life: German Lebensphilosophie 1870-1920 (2023) by Frederick C. Beiser. Please read up to page 19 in the Beiser.
• For the 3rd session (June 22), please read from page 36-63 in Bergo. Please read from page 99 to page 152 in the Guyer/Wood translation (yes, we will be reviewing the Kant passages from the first sessions but what is NEW is pp. 124-152). Please also acquire Graham Bird's book The Revolutionary Kant (2006) and read pages 30-48. You may want to read the Graham Bird sections twice — Kant is worth it. (A pdf of the Bird if you need access)
• For the 2nd session (June 8), please read from page 16 to page 35 in Bergo. Please read from page 99 to page 124 in the Guyer/Wood translation. Please also acquire Graham Bird's book The Revolutionary Kant (2006) and read pages 1 - 29.
• For the 1st session (May 25) of the meetup, please read up to page 16 in Bergo. Please acquire a copy of the Guyer and Wood translation of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and read pages 99 to 111. (A pdf of the Bergo and a pdf of the Guyer/Wood if you need access)

Further reading assignments will be posted once we get a better sense of the pacing that will work best for the Bergo book and the Kant related books.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

A note on the Kant translation:

Many people in the meetup community prefer the Pluhar translations of Kant, perhaps in part because they are easier to follow. I agree that they are easier, but Pluhar achieved this by building in an interpretation. Guyer and Wood achieved something even better than ease of reading — they managed to give us a translation of Kant that genuinely reflects the German text with none of its difficulties politely whisked away. Even though I strongly disagree with Guyer's interpretation of Kant, he had the intellectual integrity to leave his interpretation at the door and give us real Kant in his translation.

Those of you who have heard me talk about how difficult (and occasionally impossible) it is to translate Heidegger will be happy to hear that I think that translating Kant is actually pretty easy. There are only two German words I will need to explain in depth and (fortunately) they are words that are often found together so they should be easy to remember. They are the German words for "mere" and "appearance":

• "bloß" (also spelled "bloss") and "Erscheinen".

When we do Heidegger I encourage people to refer to the German text if they can. But when we do Kant I request that anyone who has questions about the German text should message their questions to me on the meetup site. In the case of Heidegger it is worth it to interrupt the flow to pause and deal with translation issues. In the case of Kant, it generally is not — you really are not missing much if you cannot read Kant in German.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

A Note on the bewilderingly wide range of ways of interpreting Kant

The "Filling in the Background" portion of this meetup that deals with Kant will be informed by a simple guiding ethos: To engage seriously with Kant just IS to engage seriously with the bewilderingly wide range of ways there are of interpreting Kant. One interpretation (or more accurately one cluster of closely related interpretations) sometimes called "Oxford Kantianism" has acquired something of an iron grip on English language study of Kant. Amateur philosophers and Philosophy Profs who do not specialize in Kant often think "Oxford Kantianism" is the only (or only serious) way to interpret Kant. Yet, even in the English speaking world the majority of philosophers who specialize in Kant generally think "Oxford Kantianism" is utterly wrong. If you are mostly familiar only with "Oxford Kantianism" you might find Graham Bird's interpretation disorienting and eccentric. Yet Bird's approach is actually starting to look a little bit old fashioned to younger Kant specialists. Bird and the majority of Kant specialists (including me I suppose) are starting to look like we are a bit "stuck in the 80's... the 1980's that is".

So in the field of Kant scholarship in 2025 we are looking at a situation where amateurs and profs who do not specialize in Kant still treat "Oxford Kantianism" as the unquestioned right interpretation. Graham Bird (and me) might look outrageously avant-garde and eccentric to someone who assumes that "Oxford Kantianism" is the only option. But now Graham Bird (and me) are starting to look a bit old-fashioned to people like Lucy Allais. Confusing?! Yes! But in a fascinating and interesting way. Don't worry, I will make all of this very clear over the course of 5 or 6 sessions on Kant in the "Filling in the background" portion of the meetup.