What we’re about
[Note: This group is looking for a new owner! In the meantime, join the Toronto Philosophy Meetup to find many more online philosophy events and activities: https://www.meetup.com/the-toronto-philosophy-meetup/
The description below is from the previous organizer of the group.]
Welcome to the Calgary Philosophy Meetup! We're a local community for people interested in reading and discussing philosophy. We hold discussions and other events on a broad range of philosophical topics and problems. No previous experience is required for any of our meetups, only a willingness to engage with the works being discussed. The only basic ground-rule is to please, as with everywhere else in life, be polite and respectful during discussions.
Feel free to propose topics you would like to see (you can do this in the Discussions section), and please contact the organizers if you would like to host an event yourself, or organize events here on a regular basis.
People care where others around them stand on contentious moral and political issues. Yet when faced with the prospect of taking sides and the possibility of alienating observers with whom they might disagree, people may try to “stay out of it”. We demonstrate that despite its intuitive appeal for reducing conflict, opting not to take sides over moral issues can provoke distrust and disdain, even more so than siding against an observer’s viewpoint outright. Across 11 experiments, we find that attempts to stay out of the fray are often interpreted as deceptive and untrustworthy. When people choose not to take sides, observers often ascribe concealed opposition, an attribution of strategic deception which provokes distrust and undermines real-stakes cooperation and partner choice. However, we further demonstrate that this effect arises only when staying out of it seems strategic: People who seem to hold authentic middle-ground beliefs or who lack incentives for impression management are not distrusted for staying neutral. (The full paper from the Journal of Experimental Psychology)
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Join the Toronto Philosophy Meetup to discuss the episode "The Price of Neutrality" from the Stanford Psychology Podcast at this meetup. Please listen to the episode in advance (50 minutes) and bring your thoughts, reactions, and queries to share with us at the conversation.
We'll be joined by many other participants from the Toronto Philosophy Meetup at this meeting — https://www.meetup.com/the-toronto-philosophy-meetup/events/307417150/
Listen here: Spotify | Apple | The Stanford Psychology Substack
In this episode, Dr. Alex Shaw, an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Chicago, discusses his fascinating research on why attempts to stay neutral in moral and political disagreements can backfire. His work reveals that when people choose not to take sides on contentious issues, they may actually be viewed as less trustworthy than those who openly disagree. Through a series of experiments, Dr. Shaw and his colleagues found that this distrust stems from observers perceiving neutrality as strategic deception.
Shaw's research explores how children and adults navigate the complex world of social behavior, with a particular focus on morality, fairness, and social judgments.
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Future topics for this discussion series:
If you'd like to suggest a podcast episode for us to discuss at a future meetup, please send me a message or leave a comment below.
This link here is my own (frequently updated) list of listening recommendations and potential fodder for future discussions (by default it's sorted from oldest to newest but you can change the order with the "sort by" button.)
Podcast episodes we've previously discussed:
- Why Cynicism Is Bad For You (and The Surprising Science of Human Goodness) from The Gray Area
- The Culture Map: Decoding Cross-Cultural Communication from ReThinking
Upcoming events (4+)
See all- Movie Discussion – Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev (1966)Link visible for attendees
Transfixing and transcendent, the second feature by Andrei Tarkovsky traces the life of a renowned painter, vividly conjuring the murky world of 15th-century Russia. This dreamlike and remarkably tactile film follows Andrei Rublev as he passes through a series of poetically linked scenes, gradually emerging as a man struggling to hold on to his faith in God and art in a world of overwhelming cruelty, suffering, and barbarism. Initially banned by Soviet authorities for a host of reasons (political ambiguity, formalism, “historical inaccuracy”, religion, and its depiction of the artist’s plight under a repressive regime), Andrei Rublev is one of Tarkovsky’s most revered films, an arresting meditation on faith, creativity, and spiritual endurance.
"A film of spiritual power and epic grandeur… It may be Tarkovsky’s greatest work.” (The Observer)
"One of the most convincing portrayals in art of an artist." (The Guardian)
"A hymn to creative freedom... and to courage and risk-taking as two of the fundamental characteristics anyone who intends to transform the world must have.” (Sight and Sound)
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Join the Toronto Philosophy Meetup to discuss the movie Andrei Rublev (1966) directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, recently voted the 26th greatest movie of all time in Sight & Sound's international survey of filmmakers, and the 67th greatest movie of all time in the related poll of film critics and scholars. Initially banned by Soviet authorities, the film was allowed to screen at the 1969 Cannes festival where it won the International Critics Prize. We've previously discussed Tarkovsky's Solaris (1972), Stalker (1979), Nostalghia (1983), and Ivan's Childhood (1962) in this group.
Please watch the movie in advance and bring your thoughts, reactions, and queries to share with us at the meeting.
There are many versions of this movie floating around out there. I suggest we all watch the original uncensored 183 minute version of the movie as Tarkovsky intended it, which is available through Criterion. You can stream it with a viewing link to be posted on the main event listing here.
We'll be joined by many other participants from the Toronto Philosophy Meetup at this meeting — https://www.meetup.com/the-toronto-philosophy-meetup/events/308858551/
Check out other film discussions in the group every Friday and occasionally other days.
- Georges Bataille's Blue of Noon: Writing the AbjectLink visible for attendees
We're discussing Georges Bataille's avant-garde novel Blue of Noon.
How can we apply Bataillian ideas, such as inner experience, the heterogeneous, sacrifice and eroticism, to the events and style of this novel?
You can find all texts in the Google folder linked at the BOTTOM of this description (also the Zoom link) -- scroll all the way down 👇
For notes and commentary on the texts see my Bataille blog at this link:
https://sites.google.com/view/existentialism-and-its-critics/Upcoming topics:
Jul 12: Sontag, "The Pornographic Imagination": on the Marquis de Sade & Bataille's Blue of Noon
Jul 19: Bataille, Blue of Noon
Jul 26: Bataille and Surrealism
Aug 2: Bataille and Surrealism (cont'd)Please take the time to read and reflect on the reading prior to the meeting. Everyone is welcome to attend, but speaking priority will be given to people who have read the text.
Future topics to be discussed:
- Deleuze with/against Bataille
- Eroticism and the 'logic' of transgression
- Foucault's "A Preface to Transgression"
- Bataille's reading of Hegel, the negative and general economy
- Derrida's "From Restricted to General Economy"
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ABOUT THIS GROUP
Bataille stands out as an eclectic, fascinating and controversial figure in the world of French letters. A contemporary of Sartre and Lacan, he combined ideas from diverse disciplines to create a unique position that he labeled 'base materialism' and which could equally be called 'ecstatic materialism'. Keeping outside the academic mainstream (he worked as a librarian), Bataille writes at the intersection of multiple disciplines including philosophy, psychoanalysis, sociology, mythology, and mystical theology. His works develop a libidinal economy, offer a critique of fascism and embrace marginal experiences in the style of the French poets. He is a formative precursor to the post-structuralist philosophers of the '60s -- and may well be more relevant in our time than ever.We'll start with Bataille's early writings on Nietzsche and make our way through his important concepts over a number of weeks. We'll aim to understand Bataille's thought on its own terms as well as to place him in the context of the German thinkers that preceded him and the French philosophers who followed his lead. In view of Bataille's early relationship with Surrealism, the referenced artworks will spotlight this movement.
Note: Bataille's texts, while philosophically important, discuss difficult themes such as mortality, the unconscious, eroticism, primeval social practices, etc. Keep this in mind as you approach him, especially if this is your first experience with French philosophy.
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GROUP RULES
- Please spend 1-2 hours per week reading and preparing for the discussion.
- Keep your comments concise and relevant to the text.
- Please limit each comment to a maximum of 2-3 minutes. You're welcome to speak as many times as you wish.
- Virtual meeting courtesy: let's not interrupt each other and keep mics muted when not speaking.
- We'll focus the discussion with key passages and discussion questions. Be sure to bring your favorite passages, questions, comments, criticisms, etc.
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Join the Facebook group for more resources and discussion:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/755460079505498
If you have attended previous meetings, please fill out a brief survey at this link: https://forms.gle/tEMJ4tw2yVgnTsQD6All readings can be found in this Google folder: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1VPRdvZYmUKBY3cSxD8xC8sTYtSEKBXDs
Zoom link:
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81251109319?pwd=R3hVQ2RqcVBvaHJwYnoxMFJ5OXJldz09Art: Rising sun on the plaza, Giorgio de Chirico (1976)
- Heidegger & the Measure of Truth: Themes From His Early PhilosophyLink visible for attendees
Welcome everyone to the next meetup series that Jen and Philip are presenting! This time around we are reading the book: Heidegger and the Measure of Truth: Themes From His Early Philosophy by Denis McManus.
Click here for the publishers' book description. Due to limited characters, I could not include here. Thank you for your understanding.
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CHAPTERS
Click here for a list of chapters.
The plan is to cover 1 chapter per meeting.***
MEETING DETAILS (2-WEEK ROTATION)
· Starting April 21
· Meetings run every 2 weeks (every other Sunday)
· Accelerated live read format, with live readings to be done on chosen paragraphs
· Read roughly 30-40 pages beforehand
· Pick a few paragraphs to discuss
· 1pm reserved for book topic
· 3pm reserved for free for allAll are welcome. However if you want to speak in the meetup, please be sure to do the assigned reading.
NOTE: We'll be joined by numerous other participants from the Toronto Philosophy Meetup at these meetings –
https://www.meetup.com/the-toronto-philosophy-meetup/events/calendar/***
PURPOSE OF COVERING THIS BOOK
Please note that in this meetup we will be doing philosophy, not history of ideas. We will be trying to find flaws in Heidegger's reasoning and in his mode of presenting his ideas. We will also be trying to improve the ideas in question and perhaps proposing better alternatives. Historians of ideas are people who try to understand ideas from the past. Of course philosophers must try to do this too, but they then go on to critically assess the ideas in question. In this meetup, we will be philosophers and not historians of ideas!
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CLARIFICATION OF THIS MEETUP'S ATTITUDE TO HEIDEGGER'S RACISM
Philip writes: I feel that it is important to be clear up front about how the topic of Heidegger's racist politics will be dealt with in this meetup. Throughout his life (starting as a very young man) Heidegger was drawn to far right wing, nationalist, racist views which any reasonable person should find loathsome. Yet when it comes to thinking about the way the world is and what it means to be a human in that world, Heidegger is arguably the most important philosopher of the twentieth century. Some meetups rule out any discussion of Heidegger's politics, even though this is a core aspect of Heidegger's way of thinking. This meetup will not do that. In this meetup, we will make room for discussion of how Heidegger's politics may relate to his ideas on ontology and being human. Also, it will be possible in this meetup to consider whether Heidegger's ideas on ontology and being human shaped his politics. These questions will certainly not be the main focus of the meetup (far from it). But these questions will not be ignored either.
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OTHER PHILOSOPHERS IN THIS BOOK
Please note that Denis McManus's book refers to many other philosophers, both living and dead. No one should feel overwhelmed by the task of learning about these other philosophers since Philip will fill in the relevant background information on these philosophers as they come up.
The one possible exception is Kant. The Denis McManus book does mention Kant from time to time. Although Kant is the philosopher that Philip knows best, Kant's philosophy is so vast and intricate that it just does not lend itself to easy summarization. Philip will do his best to explicate Kant when Kant's name comes up – but it is a Herculean task!
There is an awful lot of nonsense written about Kant which is widely circulated (and widely believed) in the English speaking world. Anyone who wants to explore in any depth the parts of the McManus book which deal with Kant should consider reading one of the following excellent books about Kant:
- Kant's Transcendental Idealism: An Interpretation and Defense (second edition, 2004) by Henry E. Allison. This book gives a great overview of many of the various ways of interpreting Kant. It also gives an interpretation which Philip thinks is (in broad outline) basically on the right track. However, even if you do not accept Allison's interpretation, this book is invaluable in helping the reader overcome the interpretations.
- Kant's Critique of Pure Reason: An Introduction and Interpretation
by James O'Shea.
