Phenomenology for the Godforsaken: Heidegger, Aristotle and the Medievals

About this event

Hello everyone and welcome to this meetup on Heidegger, Aristotle and the Medievals. For the first few sessions we will be reading from this book: • "The Early Heidegger and Medieval Philosophy: Phenomenology for the Godforsaken (https://www.cuapress.org/9780813221878/the-early-heidegger-and-medieval-philosophy/)" by S.J. McGrath (See below for pdf copies of the readings 👇) Ideally we would have started with the following short booklet, but sadly it is not out yet. As soon as it is out in paper format we will temporarily switch from reading McGrath to reading: • Heidegger and Aristotle (Cambridge Element) by Francisco J. Gonzalez Along the way we will frequently read Heidegger himself. Usually we will read short essays by Heidegger mostly focussed on his early views on Medieval philosophy. The one big exception is that we will read some of the early chapters of Heidegger's "Being and Time" in the new Yale translation by Cyril Welch (https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300282726/being-and-time/). This will be a 2 hour meetup. Some sessions will be dedicated entirely to the reading of the McGrath book. Other sessions will be dedicated entirely to the reading of works by Heidegger or Gonzalez. This is a little bit different from my usual format where we read from two books in each session. The format will be our usual "accelerated live read" format. What this means is that each participant will be expected to read roughly 15-20 pages from the book assigned for that day's session. Each participant will have the option of picking a few paragraphs they especially want us to focus on. We will then do a live read on the paragraphs that the participants found most interesting when they did the assigned reading. People who have not done the reading are welcome to attend this meetup. However if you want to TALK during the meetup it is essential that you do the reading. We mean it! It is essential that the direction of the conversation be influenced only by people who have actually done the reading. In other words, if you want to talk in this meetup, you have to read the assigned readings. You may think you are so brilliant and wonderful that you can come up with great points even if you do not read the books this meetup is based on. You probably are brilliant and wonderful – no argument there! But you still have to do the reading if you want to talk in this meetup. REALLY. Please note that this is a "raise hands" meetup and has a highly structured format, not an anarchy-based one. This is mostly for philosophical reasons: We want to discourage a simple-minded rapid fire "gotcha!" approach to philosophy. Here is the reading schedule: • For the 1st session (August 17), please read the Preface and also pages 1-6 in McGrath • For the 2nd session (August 31), please read pages 6-24 in McGrath • For the 3rd session (September 14), please read the Preface and also pages 25-40 in McGrath • ..... After that, the readings will be posted. PDF copies of the texts available below: • Heidegger's Being and Time (https://app.box.com/s/ul1as6h0le1vpskqwa4wo3nskpvmtgyt), new translation by Cyril Welch (https://app.box.com/s/ul1as6h0le1vpskqwa4wo3nskpvmtgyt) • McGrath's Phenomenology for the Godforsaken (https://app.box.com/s/4h1ppl4q1733d0q0n2198hez8ljdoz7y) • Gonzalez to be posted This initial reading schedule makes it look like we will mostly be reading McGrath in this meetup. But this is misleading and not true. I want us to get a foothold in McGrath before we tackle Heidegger, but once we have that foothold we will be more or less alternating one session of McGrath with one session of Heidegger himself. I have found that sometimes people assume that I pick books for these meetups because I agree with them. This is not true! I pick books because they are thought provoking and because I think they will work in a meetup context. But for the record, it just so happens that I do tend to agree strongly with Gonzalez. And it just so happens tha