What we’re about
You may sometimes wonder about fundamental things. Philosophers incline to it non-stop. At their best, they make trouble in the world of ideas. They open worm cans. Bring your can openers!
We have explored — or will (or will again) — age-old topics like God's existence, the nature of people and things, truth, justice, knowledge, free will, determinism, fatalism, birth, death, the right way to live or die... as well as theories in the major divisions of philosophical thought such as logic, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics. Exploring these core areas can help with understanding what is at stake in the more concrete topics we also address, which include controversies around abortion, infanticide, capital punishment, suicide (physician-assisted and otherwise), economic and social equality, criminality, genetic engineering, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, technology, over-population, depopulation, war, terrorism, racism, sexism, feminism, transhumanism, antinatalism, procreation ethics, speciesism, sexuality, human "rights," animal rights, the "rights" of (or to) anything whatsoever!,... as well as important issues in medical ethics, political philosophy, environmental ethics, bioethics, philosophy of law, of art, of literature, of religion, of science and its methods; and the nature, history, and methods of philosophy itself... not to exclude philosophical topics as yet uninvented.
In fact, "inventing topics" is a side effect of asking hard questions, which inevitably lead to still harder questions. Often enough, "new" topics are not really "new" but old, even ancient, unsettled concerns resurfacing. And it is those unsettled issues that are the real philosophical problems. As one philosopher once said, "If it has a solution, it was probably just science anyway." Any important subject whose fundamental ideas invite critical examination is ripe for our can opener... eventually we may work our way up to the really big can: the point of it all! (But don't expect pat answers — we don't do self-help.)
This club is open to serious approaches to philosophy — analytic, "Continental," and otherwise. Philosophy in the Anglo-American world (for better or worse) is still dominated by some form of conceptual analysis. What characterizes the analytic approach to philosophy is attention to clarity and as much rigor as we can muster in our concepts and arguments — while, hopefully, keeping one foot in reality. (It's not "clear" that "reality" has anything to do with "clarity" or "rigor.") We ply "belief systems" with questions framed against such values. But you may know better! Philosophical traditions, no less than individual philosophical views, are error prone. Any "philosophy" worthy of the name should be comfortable with this.
We will try to stay focused on the topics under discussion, realizing that this is difficult. If one thing doesn't connect with another, it can't be that important. We draw on the insights of some of the brightest thinkers we know, both living and dead. Celebrated authority is no guarantee of being right. In fact, we already know at least half of the great philosophical thinkers must be wrong because the other half disagrees with them. But which half? (Even to assume only half are wrong is being more than a little optimistic. Why would any of them be right?)
Though we range widely in the topics we cover, we try not to let anything go in our discussion. The point is to rise above the level of BS that too often passes in informal discussions for philosophy. Beyond a certain respect for clarity and rigor, we do not have an axe to grind. You may bring your own axe, we may sharpen it for you... or we may grind it to a stump. We mostly open worm cans, remember? You decide what to do with the worms!
Skepticism and disagreement are to be expected, even encouraged. We should try to make the best case we can for our side and attend to what others say. We should expect that expressions of conviction may be forceful and that’s fine, as long as they are respectful of others and rational, which, in the context of a philosophy club, means to attempt to offer reasons to believe — reasons that are thought out and not themselves more controversial than the claims they are meant to support. These are aspirations, of course, not actual descriptions of what happens in even earnest philosophical discussions. We should nevertheless try...
A word about etiquette, again: philosophy, by its nature, is contentious. Expect disagreement and treat each other respectfully. Failure to do so may be cause for removal.
See the collection of archived writeups for perspective on the topics we have and may cover. Check out recorded sessions. See also Philosophical Resources Online.
The group is international and mostly online. Formal membership is not required to attend and participate. Contact us for the video link if you just want to try it without membership. Our meetings and resources are free and open to the public. Auditing is perfectly fine.
Finally, if you know something about a topic and would like us to address it or you would like to present and host it yourself, let us know. You don't have to be an expert. We will work with you. So long as we can make out a philosophical angle — it addresses fundamental questions about an important subject, we would love to explore it.
Contact us with any questions.
— Victor Muñoz, organizer
Upcoming events (4)
See all- Philm series | Silent Light | ReygadasLink visible for attendees
This is a masterpiece of slow-paced hyper – culminating in magical – realism by director Carlos Reygadas. The love triangle is set in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua within a century-old rural colony of German Mennonites. Most of the cast are non-actors and actual members of the Mennonite community. They speak Plautdietsch, a dialect of German, few, even Germans, today speak. So the rest of the world needs subtitles. The tension of infidelity in a profoundly religious community is arresting. The director is known for sometimes brutally juxtaposing sexual and religious sensibility, but this film approaches the theme with exquisite sensitivity and humanity. Reminiscent, at times, of Carl Theodor Dreyer, Robert Bresson, Terence Malick, and Andrei Tarkovsky, Reygadas’ pace and cinematic vision is more personal and unique.
- Cannes Film Festival 2007 Jury Prize
- Among the top 25 films of the 21st Century, NYT
- “On Heaven as it is in Earth,” by José Teodoro at Film Comment.
- Extended interview with director: "FRAMES of REPRESENTATION 2019: The Cinema of Carlos Reygadas - Masterclass."
You can find clips and low-resolution trailers in various languages online, but I will send a link to a high resolution copy of the film with English subtitles to those who RSVP yes.
- Philm seriesLink visible for attendees
This is not a post for a specific future event but a follow up to suggestions about scheduling film discussions. Here is a list of proposals from me and others. Feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments. The idea is to settle on a film, each of us watch it independently, then come together online to discuss it. The film should be engaging and provocative. Of course, each of us may have different ideas of what that means. And pretty much all great films can be that...
I think another requirement is that it be freely accessible online. The ones listed below, I think, are. (If they are not where you are, let us know. We may find another way to make them accessible.)
You are invited to vote for or give a rating (say, 1 to 10) on any of these films in the comments to help us choose. This could be a regular ongoing series, depending on interest, so it might not be either/or, we may do all of them eventually. (This is not the first time we have had a film discussion. A number of years ago, just before the pandemic, when the club was still meeting in person is Seattle, we did Dogville, Lars von Trier's cinematic provocation.)
The Last Man on Earth (1964) with Vincent Price [interesting in light of the recent pandemic]
Russian Ark [a cinematic tour de force]
Lars von Trier's Dancer in the Dark [Bjork's performance is legendary in this musical tragedy]
Carlos Reygadas' Silent Light [I think this is one of the most powerful and sublime films I have ever seen but I am still looking for a free version with English subtitles]
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? [Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton show how to do dysfunctional relationships right]
- Philm Series: "All That Jazz" 1979Link visible for attendees
"All That Jazz" Movie Link or Youtube
Joe Gideon, played by 70s star Roy Scheider, rides a high including but not limited to: music, dancing, comedy, women (with or without infidelity), speed, cigarettes, and alcohol. He is unapologetic. When will it all catch up with him?
Gideon is not looking to moderate. No Aristotelian mean for Mr Gideon. I view this as a good vehicle to study the philosophy of hedonism and related theories.
- ConspiracismLink visible for attendees
...or the tendency to believe in a conspiracy as an explanation for some (usually undesirable) social phenomenon. A conspiracy is usually defined as a belief or set of beliefs promulgated by a small group of persons with nefarious motives.
Though the initial number of promulgators of the theory must be small, the number of believers in the theory may be very large. The promulgators must also be aware that what they are promulgating is false, otherwise they are not true conspirators but mistaken believers. However, the believers themselves may be many and sincere in their belief.
Thus,
- the number of conspirators must be small relative to the audience they intend to deceive,
- though the number of believers may be very large,
- the conspirators must be aware of the falseness or unlikelihood of their theory,
- while the believers need not be,
- the motivations of the conspirators must be dishonest and not just careless, and
- the most dangerous, because effective, conspiracies are the products of persons empowered to promulgate.
We are going to work toward spelling out criteria for evaluating supposed conspiracy theories. Can a conspiracy theory be true? Yes. Can what it is opposed to, the “official” theory, be a conspiracy, too – or instead? Yes and yes. What are we to believe? How can we tell if a conspiracy is well-founded? In some cases, it is easy. In others, the most philosophically interesting cases, not. We will explore why this is.
The social sciences – psychology, sociology, and political science – and much of lay opinion on conspiracy tend toward a knee-jerk negative assessment of the idea: "it's just a conspiracy." Philosophers have tended to be more neutral... We will look into the reasons.
This topic falls within epistemology, the philosophical study of knowledge, what it is and how it works, and, more specifically, doxastics, which concerns philosophical questions around “belief.” It also crosses into ethics, ideas about how we should interact with each other, since knowledge and belief can affect our actions.
Examples of conspiracies can range from the near ludicrous to the quite plausible: from why smoking was once touted a health benefit to Watergate; from Hilary Clinton’s association with a ring of sex-traffickers operating out of a pizza parlor (which some connected with a child slave colony on Mars) to the origin of – and so-called "science" involved in the response to – the recent pandemic; from whether Elvis is still alive or who killed Kennedy or who is responsible for 9/11 or the appeal to Iraq's WMDs as an excuse for a 3+ trillion dollar "forever" war or the chorus of voices asserting that Biden was mentally competent to be president or to why Jeffery Epstein’s alleged “client list” has not been made public...
Conspiracies can be ambitious and pervasive, global, because there are gradations of awareness. Large numbers of people may be dimly aware that the United States, for example, is a democracy “in name only,” yet still go to the polls “believing” their vote matters. Conspiracies may be local and targeted at certain individuals or small groups. To “gaslight,” as in the classic movie of that name, can focus on making one person feel they are losing their mind.
To the extent one’s own motives are disingenuousness, or we are barely aware of them, or seek to suppress them, it seems one may “conspire” even against oneself. But here we will address conspiracy as a social phenomena. Certain societal background conditions make appeal to conspiracy especially tempting. At the top of the list is loss of trust in public institutions... How and why does that happen?
Resources
The IEP entry of “Conspiracy Theories” by Marc Pauly is particularly good and accessible as an introduction to philosophical thinking on this subject. I will be drawing from it.
