About us
Welcome to the Toronto Philosophy Meetup! This is a community (online and in-person) 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, poetry, 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 Facebook, Twitter or Bluesky and join our new Discord for extended discussion and to stay in touch with other members.
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.
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.
Upcoming events
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Analytic Political Philosophy and Authoritarian Contexts
Larkin Building, Room 200, 15 Devonshire Place, University of Toronto, Toronto, on, CAAuthoritarian contexts — e.g. regimes, movements, and personalities — are ubiquitous throughout human history, and can be found across our world today. Analytic political philosophy has tended to shy away from such contexts through idealising the conditions for theoretical research and delineating clearly the scopes for envisioned praxis and efficacy. Even where such contexts feature in analytic political theories, they are either portrayed as definitively and unequivocally defective, or as 'objects' with which democratic societies must engage. This talk posits that such methodological presumptions are fundamentally problematic: not only do they overlook the substantial richness, diversity, and agency of life in authoritarian contexts, they also fail to shed light on how political change - whether it be in the direction of greater political legitimacy or justice - can and should come about in authoritarian contexts. This talk draws upon Dr. Wong's two recently published works — Reparative Justice in Authoritarian States (Routledge, 2025) and "Living the liberal life in illiberal contexts: the case for realist pluralist liberalism", Inquiry (2026).
About the Speaker:
Brian Wong is an Assistant Professor in Philosophy at Hong Kong University. He is a political theorist and geopolitical strategist whose research examines authoritarian regimes and citizens’ political and moral responsibilities, colonial and historical injustices, and the interaction between domestic politics and foreign policy of states in East Asia, especially China. Brian has taught modules in politics to undergraduate students at Oxford and Stanford Universities, and has delivered keynote speeches across Harvard-Science Po, Carnegie-Tsinghua, Tsinghua, Tufts, and Stanford campuses.
Brian is a Hong Kong Rhodes Scholar (2020) and obtained his DPhil in Politics at Oxford University. He holds an MPhil in Political Theory (Distinction) and an MA in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (First Class) from Oxford. He co-founded and advises Oxford Political Review, a publication aspiring to bridge the theory-practice gap.* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
This is a talk with audience Q&A presented by the University of Toronto's Centre for Ethics that is free to attend and open to the public. Unfortunately this talk will not be streamed online as usual.
About the Centre for Ethics (http://ethics.utoronto.ca):
The Centre for Ethics is an interdisciplinary centre aimed at advancing research and teaching in the field of ethics, broadly defined. The Centre seeks to bring together the theoretical and practical knowledge of diverse scholars, students, public servants and social leaders in order to increase understanding of the ethical dimensions of individual, social, and political life.
In pursuit of its interdisciplinary mission, the Centre fosters lines of inquiry such as (1) foundations of ethics, which encompasses the history of ethics and core concepts in the philosophical study of ethics; (2) ethics in action, which relates theory to practice in key domains of social life, including bioethics, business ethics, and ethics in the public sphere; and (3) ethics in translation, which draws upon the rich multiculturalism of the City of Toronto and addresses the ethics of multicultural societies, ethical discourse across religious and cultural boundaries, and the ethics of international society.
The Ethics of A.I. Lab at the Centre For Ethics recently appeared on a list of 10 organizations leading the way in ethical A.I.: https://ocean.sagepub.com/blog/10-organizations-leading-the-way-in-ethical-ai
5 attendees
Hegel's Science of Logic (Book 1: The Doctrine of Being)
·OnlineOnlineAt this meeting we'll begin reading at C. Repulsion and Atrraction, on page 170 of the Miller translation.
During the meetings we'll be using the Miller translation. The pdf of the Miller can be found here (link).
At the end of the meeting we'll be talking about Stephen Houlgate's On Being: Quality and the Birth of Quantity in Hegel's 'Science of Logic' , Vol. 1, but I don't know what part of we should look at. It is available here (link).Hegel's Science of Logic (1812–1816) is a landmark in German idealism and a radical rethinking of logic as the living structure of reality itself. Rather than treating logic as a neutral tool or set of rules, Hegel presents it as the dynamic structure of reality and self-consciousness. He develops a system of dialectical reasoning in which concepts evolve through contradictions and their resolutions. In contrast to his early collaborator and philosophical rival Friedrich Schelling, who emphasized the role of intuition and nature in the Absolute, Hegel insists that pure thought — developed immanently from itself — is the true foundation of metaphysics. The work is divided into three major parts: Being, Essence, and Concept (or Notion), each tracing the development of increasingly complex categories of thought. For Hegel, logic is not abstract or static; it is the unfolding of the Absolute, the rational core of existence.
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This is a discussion group for Hegel's Science of Logic. We have read several of Friedrich Schelling's works, including Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom (1809), Ages of the World (c. 1815), and the Historical-Critical Introduction to the Philosophy of Mythology (1845), Anyone with an interest in philosophy is free to join in the meetings.
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12 attendees
Past events
7775
