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 email us at philosophyto [at] gmail [dot] com. Be vigilant for scams in general, which are everywhere these days and easier than ever 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 have moved 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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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.
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Featured event
Plato – Statesman (Live Reading)
Over the last few years, we have done a close reading of Plato's Republic and the Laws. Now we turn to the Statesman.
This week we will begin reading at 259d (last week we began at 257a, the start of the dialogue).
The dramatic action is as follows: we pick up after the Eleatic Stranger has finished the discussion that takes place in the dialogue titled the Sophist (which we read several years ago). The discussion turns to the figure of the Statesman, and while the interlocutor in the Sophist was Theaetetus (who resembled Socrates), a youth named Socrates takes on the role of interlocutor (Socrates himself is present).
No particular edition is required, but we can discuss what we want to use during the meeting. Because of this, sharing some editions that are generally available digitally in the comments may be helpful. I'll also try to keep the Greek text handy (probably through a Loeb edition, but anyone can look at Perseus as well).
If you want to familiarize yourself with the text in advance, here are some different editions:
On Perseus, Fowler (HTML): https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=plat.+stat.+257a
Plato's Complete Works:
PDF: https://app.box.com/s/4v3r6gh4ys9gdrqc705ane2hxriqfqre
Upcoming events
412
Kant FTΦ: Schiller’s Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man (Live Reading)
·OnlineOnlineIn Kant's Critique of the Power of Judgment, we see vague suggestions on how aesthetic judgments contribute to culture. In Friedrich Schiller's letters, we can see a more developed argument on how aesthetic education is required to promote the freedom of the individual as well as transition us between a state of nature and a state ruled by reason.
Hopefully, this reading provides an opportunity to compare Kant's interest in how aesthetic judgments (and moral judgments themselves) contribute to culture with Schiller and expand our interpretation of both.
At this meeting we will be starting at Letter XXIV, paragraph 1.
I've linked the Penguin edition of the book here, but please feel free to use whatever edition you have or want.
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Aesthetic-Education-Man-Friedrich-Schiller/dp/0141396962?sr=8-1
PDF: https://annas-archive.li/md5/22dcd586440cfd2d7ada034ca119db79
PDF (with facing German): https://annas-archive.li/md5/005de78cf1a714cc2c155ce569f670cf
Note: Kant FTΦ (Friends Through Philosophy) is a group of individuals who have connected over reading Kant (and other philosophers).
This meeting will focus on the interests of regular attendees. We will frequently reference Kant and other philosophers. Discussions may involve shared notions that have developed over time. If you are not a regular attendee and feel lost in the conversation, it may be a byproduct of being newer to the meetings: don't hesitate to ask for clarification.
8 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.
- COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES (WE ARE CURRENTLY USING THIS SITE)
- https://digitaldante.columbia.edu/dante/divine-comedy/
- Dante Study Documents: I have shared a folder containing all the copies and materials I have prepared for our Dante sessions. New documents will be added:
- regularly.https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1YZxvnwlqRM2oKZsqRd36n55p91LSyTKS?usp=share_link
📌 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.
***
## 🧍 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.
## 📚 Links to the Book (Public Domain)
- ***1, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES (WE ARE CURRENTLY USING THIS SITE)
- https://digitaldante.columbia.edu/dante/divine-comedy/
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***
20 attendees
Debate: Can you be entirely in control of your Success?
·OnlineOnlineWe had our introductory discussion on what is success. From that there seemed to be a consensus that the major drivers of success were the non material things, love, contentment, how you live etc. During that discussion I developed some follow up questions on which we will have discussions/debates:
But before that, the Zoom link will be posted shortly before the event. During the discussion, if you want to raise a point please raise your hand and you will have up to 3 minutes to speak. Once a speaker talks there will be a 5 minute period where anyone can follow up with a counter point, question, or continuing thought along the same line of thought (leave such comments to 1 minute). But do not begin a new train of thought unless you raise your hand. If you find yourself dominating the conversation please relax and give others a chance to join in.
6/4 Discussion: Is being successful a good thing to strive for? (Or is it better to just live and enjoy your life?) We decided that a drive for success is innate like the desire of a salmon to swim upstream to reproduce. Allowing that drive to take on societies version of success is probably wrong, but developing an individual form of success is more nuanced and may be good or bad, depending if you have an adequate understanding of yourself.
6/11/26 week: What is our greatest drive as humans? To optimize our lives
6/18/26 week: What is our view on what success is as a society? Money, Continuation of Society/Species, Community
6/25/26 week: Is success inside or outside us? It is a mix, usually for younger people more outside as you get older more internally driven. But ultimately, if it is determined by happiness and contentment it has to be internal.
7/2/26 Week: What does it mean to be yourself? The statement "be yourself" has implicit assumptions including: there is a yourself to be and that it is best to be yourself. This is in comparison to the imperative to "know yourself" which implies that you need to evaluate yourself and correct any character flaws you may have. I think the best was a yin and yang relationship between "be yourself" and "know yourself" proposed by Sonny where you perform the self analysis to know yourself and then you go about being yourself in everyday life allowing you to do further analysis taking into account direct experience. But in direct answer to the question, being yourself seems to be the ability to both know what your values are and act in accordance with them.
7-9 Discussion: Is an individual’s view of success more legitimate than that of the group or vice versa? We thought that the group has a large effect on what success ultimately is and your options to move etc. to put yourself in different scenarios are there, but may be limited. So it is situation dependent but is likely the groups view.
7-16 Discussion: How are success, what is good and happiness related? Happiness is often an essential ingredient in being successful as you need to be engaged to be successful at something. And happiness often comes from doing what is good.
7-24 Discussion: Is success how you live or what you accomplish while living or both? A common theme we found was that a feeling of gratification/meaning comes from accomplishing a goal, solving a problem or overcoming a constraint. These are "how you live" subjective feelings and are the main intrinsically valuable things we experience in life. Whereby material things like say a large house does not have any intrinsic value. Therefore, we believe it is "how you live" that determines whether you lived a successful life
7-30 Discussion: Constant Craving- Can we ever be satisfied? We will listen to and discuss the following youtube video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vao9HN_FqOE The video considered all non presentism to be bad as it believes the only place you can be happy and really successful is in the present. But the group was mixed as to whether or not they agreed with that. Some believed that planning and striving for success was inherent in our biology while others believed that being in the now was the best way to spend the majority of ones life. These two views are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
This Week: Can you be entirely in control of your own success?
Which philosophy provides the best path to success: Hedonism, Epicureanism, Stoicism, or Aristotelianism?
How can you go into something knowing you are going to get out of it what you intended?
How can you do the best you can in life?
(Meta best vs. micro best, are these always aligned?)
Can you be successful without spirituality?
Does your success in life only matter if there is some kind of an afterlife?
What role does Love play in success?
Are there lessons we are sent to earth to learn?This discussion is deliberately open ended, so please don't come on to the meeting and start saying we need to have definitions like what is success etc. That being said I don't mind you saying to me success is blah blah, therefore I think a successful life is so and so. But I want to encourage different perspectives.
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14 attendees
Past events
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