What we’re about
Welcome to the Toronto Philosophy Meetup! This is a community for anyone interested in philosophy, including newcomers to the subject. We host discussions, talks, reading groups, pub nights, debates, and other events on an inclusive range of topics and perspectives in philosophy, drawing from an array of materials (e.g. philosophical writings, for the most part, but also movies, literature, history, science, art, podcasts, current events, ethnographies, and whatever else seems good.)
Anyone is welcomed to host philosophy-related events here. We also welcome speakers and collaborations with other groups.
Join us at an event soon for friendship, cooperative discourse, and mental exercise!
You can also follow us on Twitter and join our Discord.
Feel free to propose meetup topics (you can do this on the Message Boards), and please contact us if you would like to be a speaker or host an event.
(NOTE: Most of our events are currently online because of the pandemic.)
"Philosophy is not a theory but an activity."
— from "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus", Wittgenstein
"Discourse cheers us to companionable
reflection. Such reflection neither
parades polemical opinions nor does it
tolerate complaisant agreement. The sail
of thinking keeps trimmed hard to the
wind of the matter."
— from "On the Experience of Thinking", Heidegger
See here for an extensive list of podcasts and resources on the internet about philosophy.
See here for the standards of conduct that our members are expected to abide by. Members should also familiarize themselves with Meetup's Terms of Service Agreement, especially the section on Usage and Content Policies.
See here for a list of other philosophy-related groups to check out in the Toronto area: https://www.meetup.com/The-Toronto-Philosophy-Meetup/pages/30522966/Other_Philosophy_Groups_in_the_Toronto_Area/
Please note that no advertising of external events, products, businesses, or organizations is allowed on this site without permission from the main Organizer.
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Make a Donation
Since 2016, the Toronto Philosophy Meetup has been holding regular events that are free, open to the public, and help to foster community and a culture of philosophy in Toronto and beyond. To help us continue to do so into the future, please consider supporting us with a donation! Any amount is most welcome.
You can make a donation here.
See here for more information and to meet our donors.
Supporters will be listed on our donors page unless they wish to remain anonymous. We thank them for their generosity!
If you would like to help out or support us in other ways (such as with any skills or expertise you may have), please contact us.
Note: You can also use the donation link to tip individual hosts. Let us know who you want to tip in the notes section. You can also contact hosts directly for ways to tip them.
People find faith or change faiths for many reasons: marriage, raising a family, dealing with grief or crisis. But sometimes it happens the other way around… faith finds you. A believing takes hold, a sense that something divine is there. And maybe not in the way or role that you might have expected.
It’s not uncommon. Data show that these types of experiences happen to about 30% of people. On this episode we’ll talk to one of these people — New York Times columnist and best-selling author David Brooks — about his unexpected encounter with faith and what came after.
Find out more about Weave: The Social Fabric Project, the non-profit David founded at the Aspen Institute.
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We will discuss the episode “Found By Faith” from the How God Works: The Science Behind Spirituality podcast at this meetup. Please listen to the episode in advance (35 minutes) and bring your thoughts, reactions, and queries to share with us at the conversation. The sound on this episode (specifically David Brooks' mic) isn't great so you may want to slow down the playback speed a bit.
Listen here: Spotify | Apple | The How God Works website
ADDITIONAL listening (OPTIONAL but highly recommended):
- "What Is Faith?" (15 minutes) on Bishop Barron’s Word On Fire podcast — Spotify | Apple | The Word On Fire website
- "This Pastor Thought Being Gay Was a Sin. Then His 15-Year-Old Came Out" (19 minutes) on The Opinions podcast — Spotify | Apple | The New York Times Opinions website
About the podcast:
David DeSteno is a professor of psychology at Northeastern University, where he directs the Social Emotions Lab, and the host of the popular podcast How God Works. David studies the ways emotions guide decisions and behaviors fundamental to social living. By examining moral and economic behaviors such as compassion and trust, cooperation and resilience, and dishonesty and prejudice, his work tries to illuminate how emotions can optimize our actions in favor of the greater good or, by virtue of bugs in the system, lead to suboptimal or biased outcomes. His research continually demonstrates the variability of moral behavior and aims to develop strategies to improve it. These efforts include working with public and private sector partners to design strategies meant to enhance individual and collective wellbeing.
David is a best-selling author of the books Out of Character: The Surprising Truths About the Liar, Cheat, Sinner (and Saint) Lurking in All of Us (2013), How God Works: The Science Behind the Benefits of Religion (2021), Emotional Success (2018), and The Truth About Trust (2014). He frequently writes about his work for major publications including The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and Harvard Business Review. David is a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and the American Psychological Association, for which he served as editor-in-chief of the journal Emotion. His work has been funded by the National Science Foundation.
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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) playlist of listening recommendations and potential fodder for future discussions (by default it's sorted from oldest to newest but you can reverse it 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
- The Price of Neutrality: Why “Staying Out of It” Backfires in Moral Disagreement from The Stanford Psychology Podcast
- Human Nature and The Impossibility of Utopia from Philosophy For Our Times
Upcoming events (4+)
See all- International Relations: Theories, Applications, and Current EventsLink visible for attendees
This will mostly be a discussion around major recent and ongoing events in international relations, while applying as much IR concepts and frameworks as possible.
08/08 Strategic Autonomy and Multipolarity
--Strategic Autonomy--
Strategic Autonomy in an Independent World
India and Strategic Autonomy, Europe, Europe2
--Multipolarity--
Multipolarity (Bilahari Kausikan)
India's Multialignment Strategy (Mahbubani)
The American State in a Multipolar World (Sachs)[Placeholder for references]
- Middle East
- Ukraine
- NATO / Transatlantic
- China / BRICS
- Other
Links to previous event on Israel-Iran:
John Mearsheimer & Yoram Hazony on Israel vs. Iran
BLACK PILL: Majority Americans Support Iran War
Ted Postol on Physics of the Air Strike, Jeffrey Sachs, John Mearsheimer, Douglas MacGregor, Chaz Freeman
Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East | Lex Fridman Podcast
Bilahari Kausikan: U.S. Role in World is Undergoing ‘Fundamental Shift’Prior/ongoing series on basic IR Theories:
Theory
- Quick Overview of Structural Realism, Liberalism, etc.; Another
- Offensive vs. Defensive Realism; 2
- Constructivism
- Diplomacy: Stapleton Roy, George Schultz, Bilahari Kausikan
- Power: Joseph Nye, Jack Matlock
Talks, applications, and discussions
- Rise and Fall of Liberal Intl Order
- John Mearsheimer discusses his book "The Great Delusion"
- Why is Ukraine the West's Fault? Featuring John Mearsheimer (2015)
- Why John Mearsheimer is wrong about realism, great power politics and history
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AjiSqp5Ddw
Additional Info and References
- [Placeholder]
- Plato’s Phaedo, on the Soul (Live Reading)Link visible for attendees
Phaedo is a fictional account of the conversation that took place between Socrates and his adherents just as Socrates was waiting to drink the hemlock. It marks a transition from the earlier ethical dialogues the more comprehensive works that involve proper epistemological and ontological inquiry. It is also the first dialogue to give a proper account of the theory of forms and contains a very short intellectual autobiography of Socrates. Phaedo remains important in our modern age both as a treasure trove of intellectual possibilities and because it provides a firm and coherent foundation for the philosophical life which, in Socrates' case culminates in death.
Therefore, Phaedo is both an ideal introduction to the platonic theory of forms and a summary of some of the arguments that would be used to defend the immortality of the soul for more than 2300 years.
Phaedo, along with the Euthyphro, the Apology, and Crito comprise the quartet of Plato’s works and are sometimes collectively called "The Trial and Death of Socrates". It is part of the first tetralogy of Platonic works and belongs to Plato’s middle creative period.
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This is a live reading of Phaedo. No previous knowledge of the Platonic corpus is required but a general understanding of the question of philosophy in general and of ancient philosophy in particular is to some extent desirable but not presupposed. This Plato group meets on Saturdays and has previously read the Apology, Philebus, Gorgias, Critias, Laches, Timaeus, Euthyphro, Crito and other works, including ancient commentaries and texts for contextualisation such as Gorgias’ Praise of Helen. The reading is intended for well-informed generalists even though specialists are obviously welcome. It is our aspiration to read the Platonic corpus over a long period of time.
The host is Constantine Lerounis, a distinguished Greek philologist and poet, author of Four Access Points to Shakespeare’s Works (in Greek) and Former Advisor to the President of the Hellenic Republic. May 3 is the introductory session for Phaedo and hence an ideal opportunity to join the group without having to do any catching up.
The translation we are using is by G.M.A. Grube and can be found here.
