Would any one be interested in forming a philosophy study group?

[Yuppie Grinder]

We'd probably start with entry-level stuff like Camus, Sartre, & Nietzche and then if the group maintains a solid number of participants we could move onto more interesting things. Studying philosophical texts would be more productive if you had people to discuss them with, I think. If anyone would care to participate in this sort of group message me.

[Deicide]

Perhaps video or audio discussions? Text is really tedious. Typing lots is really tedious.

[Caj]

I'd be interested in this. You should make a usergroup.

[NoahZoahaar]

I'd be up for this, definitely. If it happens, please keep me posted, and I'd love to participate.

[Yuppie Grinder]

Perhaps video or audio discussions? Text is really tedious.

sure

[Dean]

If/when you decide on a work to study, I can sticky the thread so that the information is quickly accessible

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

I would be interested.

[Reify]

I think a study group for philosophy would be a great idea. Philosophy is powerful in that it can give us certain insights into things which would overwise be obscured to us. However, it is a practice without answers, and this can sometimes seem at odds with its fundamentally critical mode of being that asks questions as if there were answers. I think a need for answers is perhaps something we have inherited from our all too Christian culture which, until the recent modern era, saw man kind as belonging to a Telos (a goal - a direction). The quest for the meaning of life belongs to that fallacious understanding of man's Being. Anyway, these sorts of things are elucidated more readily by reading the likes of Nietzsche, Foucault, Gray, etc...

I would object to the view that text based study is tedious. Is reading the text of Nietzsche, then, also tedious? But philosophy today exists primarily in a textual format. If we are to engage with philosophy we need to learn to engage with text - and learn to not see it as 'tedious', but as enlightening. I think it is symptomatic of our consumerist culture that reading text is considered tedious - especially when the text of today is so much more fluent, easily digestible, and aphoristic when compared to the likes produced by Locke, Hobbes, Hegel, etc. Philosophy today exists in text, and I do not think it should be considered tedious to read text, even if the text is that produced by our peers and not that written by established philosophers.

Yet, I would not like to limit philosophy to a purely textual format. In fact, I resent it. Socrates' mode of philosophy was purely oratorical (Plato - his student - wrote down his philosophy and thus the shift towards the textual dominance in philosophy commenced). Socrates walked around Athens asking questions of his peers and masters - he brought philosophy to the streets. For me, this is always what philosophy should be: it should be a critical practice that is focused towards the society at large. It's most valuable function is to to ask questions and to try to make sense of our society and the individual's existence qua a member of society, as well as the individual's existence qua an individual.

For this reason I reject a purely analytic philosophy that merely wishes to critically analyse the validity of certain intellectual concepts. Rather, philosophy should be an enterprise that gives itself to the people as its primary goal. It is crucial in the formation of a co-ordinated ideology. In a world which is increasingly becoming subject to a one dimensional capitalist form of oppression we need to get above the paradigm of our times so as to see the potential for humanity all the better. This kind of enterprise might entail the formation of a school in philosophy.

This is where I would like to make my overrall claim about an effective engagement in a study group. I believe the most effective way for a school in philosophy to propogate and to have an impact - and thus a 'meaning' - it needs to find expression in more than just text and discussion between a small group of friends. One extremely effective way for it to transcend itself as a school is for it to learn to express itself artistically: e.g. in literature, music, lifestyle choices. Also, it will often need to express itself politically and vocationally.

For this reason, I think an effective study group would not just limit itself either to text based dialectics (or debate, depending on the open-mindedness of our contributors). It may well find its expression via means of a short story inspired by one of the studied texts or one of our discussions. It may find expression in your making a speech inspired by a particular philosophical thought. Or, you may make certain changes to your values and practices because of an engagement with a particular text. All such responses are the most heartening and the most admirable form of engagement with philosophy because it does one thing the intellectuals rarely achieve: it learns to live the philosophy. And only by really living it can it truly be said to have been tested (something never really achieved by destructive analytical approaches to philosophy). When we live it we breathe it, and we learn. And only once this has happened can we ever falsify a philosophy, but then we would see that its falsification is not necessarily its complete refutation.

[Reify]

Also, in terms of reading Nietzsche for the first time, I would recommend studying his 'On the Genealogy of Morality'. It's a reasonably short, very coherent and beautifully written book consisting of three essays. It's the first work of Nietzsche I ever read and I think it's a suitable one to start with. Of course, Beyond Good and Evil is a good book to get an overall sense of Nietzsche's philosophy, but it's less coherent and not as nicely written - its longer too. It might even be worth trying 'Twilight of the Idols', which is also very well written and quite easily read over a couple of days, but I think it's more valuable to read that book after reading a few of his earlier works.

[JPSartre12]

Sounds like a great idea :laugh:

[The Jay]

I would enjoy this.

[Yuppie Grinder]

I would still like to do this and start off with Nausea by Sartre, but there are some problems involved.
With Marxist study groups almost all the texts are available for free online. With most philosophical essays and novels, you have to go to the book shop or purchase it online. I don't know about you guys but I'm not gonna spend 10 bucks on a book because some guy on the internet suggested we discuss it.

[Brosa Luxemburg]

I don't know about you guys but I'm not gonna spend 10 bucks on a book because some guy on the internet suggested we discuss it.

lol :laugh:

[Book O'Dead]

I'd like to learn more about Umberto Eco's ideas, in particular the philosophy of Semiotics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umberto_Eco

[Positivist]

I would still like to do this and start off with Nausea by Sartre, but there are some problems involved.
With Marxist study groups almost all the texts are available for free online. With most philosophical essays and novels, you have to go to the book shop or purchase it online. I don't know about you guys but I'm not gonna spend 10 bucks on a book because some guy on the internet suggested we discuss it.

Does anyone know how to make a pdf? This way everyone in the group could contribute a little bit, of money, one person could buy the book in ebook format, and then make it I to a Pdf which could he sent to all members. I mean I have no idea how this stuff works so this might be totally impossible but maybe.

[Yuppie Grinder]

Does anyone know how to make a pdf? This way everyone in the group could contribute a little bit, of money, one person could buy the book in ebook format, and then make it I to a Pdf which could he sent to all members. I mean I have no idea how this stuff works so this might be totally impossible but maybe.

What'd probably be simpler but less constructive would be making a thread for the general discussion of philosophical literature.

[¿Que?]

Does anyone know how to make a pdf? This way everyone in the group could contribute a little bit, of money, one person could buy the book in ebook format, and then make it I to a Pdf which could he sent to all members. I mean I have no idea how this stuff works so this might be totally impossible but maybe.
I do not have a lot of experience with ebooks, but I think this is an excellent idea.

My understanding is that ebooks usually come as pdf's or a different format that could, with the right software, be converted to pdf. Another option could be simply to cut and paste the text into a word document and then convert it.

I don't really think the conversion process is really the issue. Many ebooks likely contain DRM technologies, which prevent you from accessing them from unregistered devices. Many times adding a device requires paying an extra fee. So for example, if you download an ebook to your tablet, depending on DRM, you may or may not be able to access it on your PC. Thus it becomes problematic because although you may be able to post the file somewhere for others to access, they will not be able to access its contents.

Circumventing DRM is possible, and probably fairly easy, however, you would be violating TOS with whomever you purchased the ebook from. This could lead to account suspensions, and even lawsuits if you get caught. Further, if you post intellectual property online, without approval from the intellectual property owner, you are breaking the law and could potentially get arrested for piracy. So far, there have been a few high profile criminal cases, but mostly, attacks by companies have focused on civil suits. That's not to say things could change in the future. If you guys want to effectively pirate ebooks and share them with each other, I'd suggest you do it stealthily.

Sorry, not trying to derail this thread, but I thought the comment deserved a proper response.

As to the philosophy study group, I would not be too interested to be honest. I wouldn't mind if the discussions were made publicly available, since there is no doubt I would on occasion want to see what people were saying. Unfortunately, I can't say that I could fully commit to reading all the materials, and therefore would probably abstain from taking part in the discussions.

I would be much more interested in an economics study group. I find economics to be a really weak point in my learnings, and could stand to learn a thing or too. I have a basic grasp of LTV and I have read an abridged version of capital, but I really want to get in deep. I was at a meeting recently where there was a misean guy trying to debate a bunch of Trotskyists. Although I am not a Trotskyist myself, I was incredibly impressed with the way they handled the guy, and the depth of some of their knowledge on economic theory. They cut the debate short because it was rather impromtu and not germane to the meeting's purpose, but damn, those guys knew their shit through and through. I could have listened to them for hours, even though I had no idea what they were talking about half the time.

As to the tedium of reading, well, it can go both ways. Hegel is tedious reading, no matter how you slice it. Camu's fiction is not tedious at all (but then fiction usually isn't). The little of Nietzsche I've read, which coincidentally is everything Reify mentioned, is fairly accessible as well. I've attempted to read Being and Nothingness, but found it to be in the same vein as Hegel with regard to tedium. I realize the irony of wanting an economics study group, since economic text can also be rather tedious, although I think where I am now, it's the next logical step in my intellectual progression.

So, even though I am not planning on being in the group, I would encourage you guys to folow through on this, as I am interested in what people will say regarding certain philosophical texts.

[Book O'Dead]

So let's discuss Semiotics here, now.

Umberto Eco's books are translated in all major languages and are available at your local public libraries.

The only books of Eco's I have read are his novels (I'm over halfway through Baudolino), but I understand that his novels contain object lessons in the fundamentals of Semiotics.

The titles of his books, in the order I've read them, are:
The Name of The Rose (they made a movie out of this one!)
Foucault's Pendulum (they ought to make a movie out of this one!)
The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana (this novel would make a great animated film!)
The Island Of The Day Before
The Prague Cemetery
Baudolino

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umberto_Eco#Novels_2

I mean, maybe we should consider discussing a more contemporaneous philosopher with a knowledge of antiquity and a grasp of modern times, someone who knows the difference between Popeye, Mandrake and Buzz Lightyear and can talk about antiquity and the Middle Ages like he'd actually been there.

Remember: Umberto Eco:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umberto_Eco

Semiotics:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

I don't think its all that unreasonable to expect members of the group to go out and obtain books, either by buying them or getting them from the library or other means. In any case I have a copy of Nausea that I'm not too fond of that I could scan in as a PDF if it proves too difficult to find an already existing file.


So let's discuss Semiotics here, now.

Umberto Eco's books are translated in all major languages and are available at your local public libraries.

The only books of Eco's I have read are his novels (I'm over halfway through Baudolino), but I understand that his novels contain object lessons in the fundamentals of Semiotics.

The titles of his books, in the order I've read them, are:
The Name of The Rose (they made a movie out of this one!)
Foucault's Pendulum (they ought to make a movie out of this one!)
The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana (this novel would make a great animated film!)
The Island Of The Day Before
The Prague Cemetery
Baudolino

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umberto_Eco#Novels_2

I mean, maybe we should consider discussing a more contemporaneous philosopher with a knowledge of antiquity and a grasp of modern times, someone who knows the difference between Popeye, Mandrake and Buzz Lightyear and can talk about antiquity and the Middle Ages like he'd actually been there.

Remember: Umberto Eco:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umberto_Eco

Semiotics:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics



Why not start your own thread for Semiotics? It will get more views that way than it will as something tacked onto an unrelated thread.