An Easy Meetup On: Aristotle, the Desire to Understand

Welcome everyone to the next meetup that Jen and Philip will be hosting. This time around we will be doing this book:

- Aristotle, the Desire to Understand (1988) by Jonathan Lear

I realize that when I have done Aristotle meetups in the past they have tended to get a bit too difficult. This time around I am determined to present Aristotle in a clear and helpful way (hence the title of the meetup). We will steer away from interpretive quagmires and antiquarian debates. Instead, the emphasis will be on getting a grasp on Aristotle's philosophy as a whole and also on relating Aristotle to questions that matter to philosophers now, in 2026. In my opinion the Lear book is the very best book out there for someone who wants to "feel in their bones" what Aristotle is all about.

It is impossible to really understand Phenomenology, Hermeneutics, Pragmatism, Ordinary Language Philosophy and most of the other innovative branches of 20th and 21st century philosophy without a deep appreciation of Aristotle. And that is what this meetup aims to give you, an intuitive "gut level" appreciation for Aristotle's philosophy.

This will be a three hour meetup. For the first 2 hours the emphasis will be on the Lear book. For the third and final hour we will open things up and we can discuss questions about how Aristotle relates to contemporary issues in philosophy. So much of 20th and 21st century philosophy was an attempt to escape the assumptions of Platonism. So it just makes sense to read the first philosopher who both engaged deeply with Platonism and also tried to escape Platonism.

The format will be our usual "accelerated live read" format. What this means is that each participant will be expected to read roughly 15-20
pages from the Lear book 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.

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. 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.

Please note that this is a "raise hands" meetup and has a highly structured format, not an anarchy-based one. This is mostly for philosophical reasons: I want to discourage a simple-minded rapid fire "gotcha!" approach to philosophy.

Here is the reading schedule for the first three sessions:

July 12: Lear, up to page 14

July 26: Lear, up to page 36

August 9: Lear, up to page 54

After that the readings will be posted.

A pdf of the text is available here.