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This is for those who love philosophy, but never quite had the discipline to get all the reading done. Or maybe you did and you now want to tell someone how much you understand it all. Or just want to get started.

To come to this you will be required to read the text given as the background for the monthly discussion. This is not meant to make things hard, but it's what I need to write here so that I make sure I get through the material. I have studied various philosophy subjects at university, and I read some more closely than others - this is an opportunity for me to have another crack at reading some of these great texts, and make up for the reading I didn't do. It's Also an opportunity to engage with others and learn something from the discussion.

Of course the landscape of philosophy is vast, so where to start? Initially I will be choosing from my favourite Partially Examined Life podcasts, and they will guide the material for the first few meetings. Not the podcasts themselves, but the texts that they chose. The topics they discussed (usually in the title) can be the starting points for discussion. Also, where the texts are impenetrable, the podcast will help to draw out the key areas of interest. If you have read the text, you are welcome to listen to their enjoyable discussion - but it is no replacement for reading the text itself.


I'm relating the meetup to the podcast because I enjoy it and it might be a useful companion, but I'm ambivalent about it. Partly it's to use their knowledge as a guide - the topics and texts around which they anchor their discussion. And because ideally their selection is a 'best of', although I'm some might disagree. And to be fair, some texts are very hard to read, and even those having a might crack at it might fail. In those cases the podcast might be the only thing you make sense of. But you could argue it doesn't add much and we might as well just chose some texts that people are interested in. I'm happy to start here and see how things go.

Also, if you like the sound of this meetup, chances are you'd love this one --

https://www.meetup.com/Existentialist-Society/

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