What we’re about
The Chicago Philosophy Meetup is a community of groups created by and for people interested in engagements with philosophy and the history of such engagements. Our members have a wide variety of backgrounds besides philosophy, including literature, law, physics, theology, music, and more.
We host events suggested by individual members and coordinated by volunteer organizers and offer opportunities for discussion with others who share these interests. If you have an idea for a topic you'd like to discuss, especially if you are from an historically underrepresented group in academic philosophy, let us work with you to make it happen.
Whether you're new to philosophy and looking to get started, or have been doing philosophy for some time and want to dig a bit deeper, we invite you to check us out.
We have basic expectations for how we talk to each other, so:
DO...
Listen to others
Ask for clarification
Get to know people
Help other voices to be heard
Work towards understanding each other
Practice moving past your assumptions about others
DON'T...
Limit others’ performance of items on the DO list
The Chicago Philosophy Meetup opposes any force of exclusion, discrimination, and/or harassment present in its community. Such forces include, but are not limited to, racism, transphobia, misogyny, and antisemitism. The Chicago Philosophy Meetup seeks to be inclusive because only in this way can we fulfill the DOs list above. We are here to help! If you have concerns, questions about a meeting, or need assistance (e.g. accessibility), please contact either the organizers or the event host for the meeting directly.
"Philosophy is not a theory but an activity."
-- from "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus," Wittgenstein
Discourse cheers us to companionable
reflection. Such reflection neither
parades polemical opinions nor does it
tolerate complaisant agreement. The sail
of thinking keeps trimmed hard to the
wind of the matter.
-- from "On the Experience of Thinking," Heidegger
Check out our calendar
Upcoming events (4+)
See all- Plato - Laws, Book VI (Live Reading)Link visible for attendees
We'll be continuing from Book VI, 763c (the previous meeting started at Book VI, 756e)
The dramatic action is as follows: Three elders—an Athenian, a Spartan, and a Cretan—walk the path of Minos and discuss laws and law-giving.
Meeting link: https://meet.jit.si/CPM-Saturday-Afternoon-Meetings
No particular edition is required but we can discuss what we want to use during the meeting. Because of this, sharing some editions that are generally available digitally in the comments may be helpful. I'll also try to keep the Greek text handy (probably through a Loeb edition, but anyone can look at Perseus as well).
If you want to familiarize yourself with the text in advance here are some different editions:
On Perseus, Shorely (HTML): https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0166
Plato's Complete Works:
PDF: https://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=B670E9AEA7C9F52B2D40D63FF84F5600
- Acquiring Character Traits -- Aristotle's Nicomachean EthicsLink visible for attendees
We are live-reading and discussing Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, book VII, which is about troubleshooting the virtues.
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The prerequisite to this book is our answering for ourselves these questions from the prior books, to which we will briefly review:
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1. What is a virtue of character {ēthikē aretē}?
2. How does one come to acquire it? (E.g. [Aristotle’s], ambition, bravery, gentlemanliness, generosity, candor, …)
3. From a first-person perspective in being virtuous, how does one feel and what does one see (differently, discursively) in a given situation of everyday living?
4. From a third-person perspective, how is the virtuous person (of a specific virtue) to be characterized?
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The project's cloud drive is here, at which you'll find the reading texts, notes, and slideshows. - The Prince - MachiavelliLink visible for attendees
This meetup is hosted by Wisdom and Woe. For more details and to sign up for this event, go to: https://www.meetup.com/wisdom-and-woe/events/305944333
The balance of power in Italy was shattered following the death of Lorenzo ("the Magnificent") de' Medici in 1492. The peninsula erupted in war among France, Spain, and the Holy Roman Empire, while the factional Italian city-states contended against each other.
Therefore, in the final paragraphs of The Prince (1513), Machiavelli urges Lorenzo II (the Magnificent's grandson, to whom the book is dedicated) to expel the invaders, quell the infighting, and unify all of Italy under Medici dynastic rule. He concludes by quoting Petrarch (Canzone 128, "Italia mia") in what is one of the earliest recorded examples of peninsular (as opposed to local) Italian pride. But it would be over three centuries before the nation would fulfill its hope of unity.
The Prince is perhaps the most famous book on politics ever written. Its most revolutionary conceit is its divorce of politics from ethics. Whereas classical political theory (ala Erasmus) regarded the rightful exercise of power as a function of the moral character of its ruler, Machiavelli treats authority from a purely instrumental perspective. He urges the presumptive prince to reject Christian meekness and "act contrary to faith, friendship, humanity, and religion." Instead of Christ as a role model, he cites Cesare Borgia (1475-1507), whose aristocratic family was infamous for decadence, cruelty, and criminality in its ruthless pursuit of wealth and power.
Today, Machiavelli is synonymous with treacherous, sinister self-seeking, one of the "dark triad" of negative personality traits. Yet his work remains as vital and controversial as when it first appeared, prefiguring Nieztsche's critique of Christian morality, and being both a stigma and stimulant in politics, business, and psychology.
Wisdom and Woe https://www.meetup.com/wisdom-and-woe is a philosophy and literature discussion group dedicated to exploring the world, work, life, and times of Herman Melville and the 19th century Romantic movement. The group is free and open to anybody with an interest in learning and growing by "diving deeper" into "time and eternity, things of this world and of the next, and books, and publishers, and all possible and impossible matters."
- Descartes' Meditations: Response to the Fourth Set of Objections (Live Reading)Pro Musica, Chicago, IL
We'll be starting from Latin 222. If possible, read the objections in advance.
Descartes' Meditations are a classic of philosophy typically taken as kicking off the modern period of philosophy. In the text, Descartes seeks to knock down and rebuild all of what he knows in order to finally find security in his cognitions and a path forward for securing knowledge of God and man's nature.
We welcome both beginners and advanced readers.
Various translations are available; please select the one you prefer.Text links (Amazon):
Cottingham translation (Cambridge)
Cress translation (Hackett)
Heffernan translation (English/Latin, Notre Dame)There is also a translation by Norman Kemp Smith, but it is out of print
Digital links:
Cottingham translation (Libgen, Cambridge)
Cress translation (Libgen, Hackett)
Latin text (Project Gutenberg)
