Groundless Grounds: A Study of Wittgenstein and Heidegger (a live reading)

Welcome everyone to Jen and Philip's new meetup!

This time we will be covering the book:

Groundless Grounds: A Study of Wittgenstein and Heidegger by Lee Braver.

Please note that we will not be reading very much of Wittgenstein's and Heidegger's own writings during this meetup. So many participants will want to read (on their own) some of Wittgenstein's writings (especially "Philosophical Investigations") and also some of Heidegger's writings as they relate to the theme of "groundless grounds". Philip will be happy to advise you on what you should read by Wittgenstein and Heidegger if you want to do extra reading.

The format for this meetup will be what we are calling an "Accelerated Live Read". This means that we will be reading some select paragraphs out loud before we discuss them. But we will not be doing a live read on the whole book, only on a few select paragraphs. So please be sure to read ahead and give yourself a chance to think about what Lee Braver is saying before you come to the meetup.

For the first two hours of each meetup we will be sticking very closely to the Lee Braver text. After the two hour mark, participants can talk about any aspect of philosophy they like - whether it relates to the Lee Braver book or not.

Every effort will be made to make the meetup accessible and enjoyable for beginners to philosophy. Nevertheless, the topic should also be challenging to the most advanced of philosophers.

Philip

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Here is the blurb from the back of the book:

Ludwig Wittgenstein and Martin Heidegger are two of the most important—and two of the most difficult—philosophers of the twentieth century, indelibly influencing the course of continental and analytic philosophy, respectively. In Groundless Grounds, Lee Braver argues that the views of both thinkers emerge from a fundamental attempt to create a philosophy that has dispensed with everything transcendent so that we may be satisfied with the human. Examining the central topics of their thought in detail, Braver finds that Wittgenstein and Heidegger construct a philosophy based on original finitude—finitude without the contrast of the infinite.

In Braver's elegant analysis, these two difficult bodies of work offer mutual illumination rather than compounded obscurity. Moreover, bringing the most influential thinkers in continental and analytic philosophy into dialogue with each other may enable broader conversations between these two divergent branches of philosophy.

Braver's meticulously researched and strongly argued account shows that both Wittgenstein and Heidegger strive to construct a new conception of reason, free of the illusions of the past and appropriate to the kind of beings that we are. Readers interested in either philosopher, or concerned more generally with the history of twentieth-century philosophy as well as questions of the nature of reason, will find Groundless Grounds of interest.