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 discussion and to stay in touch with other members.
(🚨🚨🚨 WARNING: FRADULENT EMAILS are circulating that IMPERSONATE organizers of this group and ask you for money or personal information if you engage. IF YOU HAVE RECEIVED SUCH AN EMAIL OR IF YOU ARE UNCERTAIN about any message claiming to represent this group, PLEASE REPORT IT by contacting the main organizer Darren directly through Meetup's messaging system or other known channels. Watch out for scams in general, which are everywhere these days and easy to generate because of A.I. 🚨🚨🚨)
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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A.I. and Democracy: Who Decides The Future?
·OnlineOnlineKeir Starmer has resigned. The sixth U.K. prime minister to do so in 10 years. A common objection against Starmer was that he lacked vision. He came to power promising change, but in one of his first speeches he told people that "things will get worse before they get better". That "better" was never articulated. Starmer is not an aberration. Across the Western world, politics is becoming a project of managing one crisis after another. When it's more radical — like with Brexit or Trump — it's nostalgic about some lost past, not forward looking. Politicians have stopped thinking about the future.
At the same time, the barons of Silicon Valley do nothing but think about the future. Elon Musk, Peter Tiel, Alex Karp, Mark Andreesen are busy drafting manifestos about the future. And it's not just technological change they envision — it's political. A.I. company CEOs like Sam Altman and Dario Amodei are now literally sitting at the G7 table. With democratic politics having given up on long-term thinking, is Silicon Valley going to decide what our future will look like? How can we create the space to imagine plausible alternatives to AI-driven dystopias? And what will it take for democratically elected politicians to start thinking about the long-term future again?
About the Speaker:
Jonathan White is Professor of Politics and Deputy Head of the European Institute at the London School of Economics, where he researches and teaches on democracy, political thought, and political theory. His latest book is In the Long Run: the Future as a Political Idea (Profile, 2024). His other books include Politics of Last Resort: Governing by Emergency in the European Union (Oxford University Press, 2019), The Meaning of Partisanship (with Lea Ypi, Oxford University Press, 2016) and Political Allegiance after European Integration (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). He was the recipient of the 2017 British Academy Brian Barry Prize for excellence in political science, and has received best-article prizes from the European Journal of International Relations (2023) and Political Studies (2015). He has written for The Guardian, New Statesman and Boston Review, and more recently an article entitled The End of the Future, for Foreign Policy.
The Moderator:
Alexis Papazoglou is Managing Editor of the LSE British Politics and Policy blog. He was previously senior editor for the Institute of Arts and Ideas, and a philosophy lecturer at Cambridge and Royal Holloway. His research interests lie broadly in the post-Kantian tradition, including Hegel, Nietzsche, as well as Husserl and Heidegger. His writing has appeared in The Guardian, The Atlantic, The New Republic, WIRED, The Independent, The Conversation, The New European, as well as Greek publications, including Kathimerini.
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This is an online conversation and audience Q&A presented by the UK-based journal The Philosopher. It is open to the public and held on Zoom. The event is free to attend but the Zoom registration page has, by default, an optional donation amount that you can change to $0 (or whatever you wish). Donations go to The Philosopher magazine to cover our costs and expand the scope of our series.
Please send feedback or comments about our events directly to thephilosopher1923@gmail.com. We'd love to hear from you!
About The Philosopher (https://www.thephilosopher1923.org/):
The Philosopher is the longest-running public philosophy journal in the UK (founded in 1923). It is published by the The Philosophical Society of England (http://www.philsoceng.uk/), a registered charity founded ten years earlier than the journal in 1913, and still running regular groups, workshops, and conferences around the UK. As of 2018, The Philosopher is edited by Newcastle-based philosopher Anthony Morgan and is published quarterly, both in print and digitally.
The journal aims to represent contemporary philosophy in all its many and constantly evolving forms, both within academia and beyond. Contributors over the years have ranged from John Dewey and G.K. Chesterton to contemporary thinkers like Christine Korsgaard, Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò, Elizabeth Anderson, Martin Hägglund, Cary Wolfe, Avital Ronell, and Adam Kotsko.
24 attendees
The Divine Comedy / Dante Reading
·OnlineOnlineTo access the group, I will ask participants to briefly show their face before admission, as we have recently experienced a high number of Zoom bombers and disruptions.
📌 The Divine Comedy is more than a story — it’s a map of the inner self.
- It teaches about choices, responsibility, and consequences.
- It shows how struggle and self‑reflection can lead to growth and spiritual awakening.
- The journey mirrors our own personal transformation — confronting flaws, repenting, and aiming for higher understanding and compassion.
A short 5-minute TEDx video introducing The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri.”
https://youtu.be/YbCEWSip9pQ?si=XybZNFwcuzJfCTuU
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## 🧍 Who Was Dante?
- Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) was a medieval Italian poet from Florence.
- He is considered one of the greatest writers in world literature and one of the founders of the Italian language.
***
## 🔥 What Is The Divine Comedy?
- A long epic poem written in terza rima (a special rhyming scheme) in the early 1300s.
- It describes a symbolic journey through the afterlife: Hell → Purgatory → Heaven.
- 🌍 What the Three Parts Represent
### 1. ⚫ Inferno (Hell)
- Dante travels through the nine circles of Hell guided by the Roman poet Virgil.
- Each circle punishes a different kind of sin.
- Theme: Recognizing the consequences of wrongdoing and human weaknesses.
### 2. 🔺 Purgatorio (Purgatory)
- Dante and Virgil climb the mountain of Purgatory, where souls purify themselves.
- It’s full of hope and change — sinners repent and grow.
- Theme: Transformation and self‑improvement.
### 3. ☀️ Paradiso (Heaven)
- Beatrice (Dante’s ideal guide of divine love) leads him through the celestial spheres.
- Dante encounters angels and blessed souls.
- Theme: Divine love, spiritual fulfillment, and union with God.
BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS:
- John Ciardi – (I HAVE PURCHASED THIS ONE). Best for a discussion group because it’s clear, accessible, and includes notes for each canto. Helps participants understand the meaning and context without getting lost in archaic language.
- Mandelbaum (20th c.) – Modern, poetic, complete. Very readable and preserves the literary quality. Good if the group wants more literary flavor ''after understanding the basics''.
- Longfellow (1867) – Historically respected, complete, but 19th-century English can be challenging.
Here is the PDF version of my PowerPoint presentation. Please note that I will be adding more material before our next meeting.
Make sure you are using the most recent version. I will update the document before Tuesday.https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KhZUEo33ma00aCWS0_lzhQDBFN8G1Eb6/view?usp=sharing
## 📅 How We’ll Proceed (Weekly Plan)
## Recommended Strategy - Hybrid Method:
Most scholars and teachers of Dante suggest a hybrid method:
- First pass: read and interpret on your (group) own
- Let your mind react naturally.
- Note your questions, feelings, and possible symbolic meanings.
- Try to paraphrase the lines in your own words.
- Second pass: read with a scholarly commentary
- Compare your interpretations with what scholars like Hollander, Singleton, or Musa explain.
- Note where you were close, where you missed something, and where you had a different insight.
- This enriches your understanding without destroying your personal perspective.
- Reflect
- Ask: “How do my interpretation and the scholarly one interact?”
- Often your own interpretation is partially right, but scholarship adds layers and precision.
- Week 1: Divine Comedy - Power Point presentation
- Week 2: Canto I — The forest, the beasts
- Week 3: Canto II — Virgil
## 📚 Links to the Book (Public Domain)
***1, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES
https://digitaldante.columbia.edu/dante/divine-comedy/2. Full text - Project Gutenberg
📎 The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso – Project Gutenberg
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8800***This is another version of Project Gutenberg, but this edition also includes notes and explanations for each canto.
https://wyomingcatholic.edu/wp-content/uploads/dante-01-inferno.pdfLECTURES AND INTERESTINS WEBSITES:
A. Prof. Teodolinda Barolini is Lorenzo da Ponte Professor of Italian at Columbia University. You can listen to her AMAZING lectures. There are 54 videos and some are more than one hour. I will be listening at least one per week.
https://digitaldante.columbia.edu/the-dante-course/B. YALE UNIVERSITY LECTURE BY: GIUSEPPE MAZZOTTA
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD1450DFDA859F694C. This link has SEVERAL excellent sources:
https://carrieannebrownian.wordpress.com/2021/07/21/extratextual-sources-for-studying-the-divine-comedy/D. Canto - Audio
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEDGsmkxv84&t=4s***
28 attendees
Past events
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