The Symposium: Philosophy Community of Chicago

Toward the end of her life, Hannah Arendt turned her attention to our faculty of judgement. How do we form judgements about good versus evil, and beauty versus ugliness, and so on? In particular, what role does thinking (or a lack of thinking) play in our judgements?

In her 1971 essay "Thinking and Moral Considerations", she analyzes the example of Socrates along with concepts from Immanuel Kant to consider what use we have for thinking in making moral judgements. She does not believe thinking and judging to be one and the same. Thinking exerts a sort of paralysis on the thinker, but that may just be prerequisite for proper judgement.

Parmenides is widely considered the most important and enduring philosopher from the pre-Socratic period. Plato would arguably look very different if Parmenides had never written, and in some respects he founded metaphysics as a recognizable field of discussion.
Parmenides' only known work, a poem written in hexameter verse around 475 B.C. and entitled "On Nature", has only survived in fragmentary form, with approximately 150 of the original 3,000 lines of text remaining today. It is divided into two main sections, describing the two ways of reality, "The Way of Truth" (which accounts for most of the surviving lines) and "The Way of Appearance/Opinion", along with an introduction. Parmenides argued in favour of the Way of Truth and against The Way of Appearance.

Text : http://philoctetes.free.fr/parmenidesunicode.htm
or
https://web.archive.org/web/20080312142454/http://www.classicpersuasion.org/pw/burnet/egp.htm?chapter=4

We have explored some of the exotic, almost mystical cosmology of Chinese philosophical Daoism in previous meetings. We can interpolate the vastness of philosophical thought by revisiting what is often considered the opposite extreme – the disciplined, rationalistic approach to philosophy embraced by the modern Western analytic tradition. Seemingly even more contrasting, in particular, is G. E. Moore's philosophy in defense of common sense.

However, I argue the contrast between the two philosophies is primarily in approach, not in content. It's not hard to argue the philosophies are, at least, not in conflict. More ambitiously, I argue there is some profound agreement. I argued Daoism is, in fact, quite sensible and reasonable. Common sense is considered quintessentially mundane, but Moore's arguments defending common sense are exotic and have inscrutable and ineffable implications.

In particular, Moore's essay A Defense of Common Sense is famous for arguing against philosophical skepticism – a philosophical approach valuing minimalism that, in moderate forms, consists of objecting to claims considered common knowledge, and in more radical forms, objecting to most or all claims of any knowledge. Adherents to philosophical skepticism tend to argue skepticism is the safest, most rational, and most parsimonious approach to philosophy.

A common argument against radical skepticism is that it presupposes the truth of that which it argues against – if no claim is true, then the claim "no claim is true" cannot be true. Moore takes this to a deeper, more sophisticated, more widely applicable and unexpected level in not only arguing against radical skepticism, but arguing against moderate skepticism, as well as affirming radical certainty.

Moore's essay is also famous in that it received (rare) praise by one of the most famous philosophical skeptics in 20th century philosophy – Ludwig Wittgenstein. In fact, Wittgenstein wrote his final work On Certainty in acknowledgement of and in response to Moore's essay. Moore's argument was so influential that, in On Certainty, Wittgenstein somewhat moderates his position from Philosophical Investigations, often considered the most influential philosophical work of the 20th century.

Thus, we will discuss section one of G. E. Moore's A Defense of Common Sense. The reading is short. A link is given below.

For this meetup we are putting the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics on trial. This is the version of quantum theory that most physicists have been chugging along with for almost a hundred years now. This interpretation says a particle doesn't have a definite position or spin or anything until you measure it, the wave function is just a bookkeeping device and not a real thing, and if you ask what is actually going on between measurements you get told to stop asking. Which, if you are that kind of person who shows up to a philosophy meetup on your weekends, is exactly the kind of answer that makes you want to ask harder.

What even counts as a measurement? Does a rock count? A cat? Where does the tiny world end and the regular world of chairs and coffee begin?

Then there is Many Worlds, the interpretation that says forget collapse, the math is telling the truth, and every possible outcome really happens in its own branch of reality. Yes, that means a version of you who registered for, but will skip this meetup. We feel bad for you on that one 😉

And then there’s Bohmian mechanics which says particles really do have definite properties, and there’s a real wave guiding them along. No mysterious collapse, and no branching universes — just particles being guided by a quantum wave that somehow connects everything together.

Come argue about whether Copenhagen is deep wisdom or a hundred year old shrug, and whether Many Worlds is brave or bonkers, etc.

And please feel free to bring your own interpretation as well. Relational Quantum? Objective Collapse? Something else entirely? Bring it to the table — just be prepared to defend it. 😉 No math background is required, although some of us may talk about some math things.

Bring your curiosity, and feel free to prep with the reading list below!

Suggested reading: