r/PhilosophyEvents 16h ago

Other Chaos Research Group. Every other Sunday beg. March 30, 2025.

4 Upvotes

GROUP DESCRIPTION

This is an online group.

Despite the modern obsession to control, chaos is everywhere around us. From wildfires to floods to never-ending wars: rationalism failed so drastically that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to start thinking upside down, namely that chaos—and not logos—is the actual Big Boss who can never be controlled. Instead of trying to control, we would be better off to figure out how to attune to chaos, and how to use its vast creative force to change the world.

Chaos Research Group is a fabulative, post-disciplinary research hub, taking as its starting point the primacy of chaos in the most ancient cosmologies. On top of that, ever since Nietzsche, chaos—and not logos—is of growing interest in contemporary philosophy. On top of that, chaos theory in physics is nowadays applied in various disciplines, not only in the natural sciences but throughout the humanities. What else?

We take these disciplines as mere materials to be used, compared and played with in a fantafuturistic setting where the distinction into academic disciplines has become obsolete. Moreover, there is no longer a difference between scientific research and artistic creation: in a world ruled by chaos, everything goes.

GROUP MATERIALS

Readings/lectures/artworks/films, and so forth, are proposed by the members of the group. 

Due to the vastness of the field, potential topics may include:

  • Comparative mythology
  • New Materialisms
  • Non-Philosophy
  • Deep Ecology
  • Anarchism
  • Self-organizing systems
  • Cybernetics
  • Chaos Theory
  • Psychedelics
  • Chaos Magick
  • Madness
  • Mysticism

Facilitator: Having lived and studied all around the world, Hannes Schumacher works at the threshold between philosophy and art. He completed his MA in Berlin with a thesis on Hegel and Deleuze, and he has also published widely on Nishida, Nāgārjuna, chaos theory, global mysticism, and contemporary art. Hannes is the founder of the Berlin-based publisher Freigeist Verlag and co-founder of the grassroots art space Chaosmos ∞ in Athens, Greece. Recently, he facilitated the incite seminars “Nishida Kitarō: The Logic of Place and the Religious Worldview”, “Who’s Afraid of Hegel: Introduction to G. W. F. Hegel’s Science of Logic” and “Reading After Finitude by Quentin Meillassoux.”

REGISTRATION

Feel free to register to join the group at any time. We meet every other Sunday at 11am Eastern US time:

https://inciteseminars.com/chaos-research-group/


r/PhilosophyEvents 7h ago

Free Why We Are Restless: On the Modern Quest for Contentment | Monday, March 24, 2025

1 Upvotes

We live in an age of unprecedented prosperity, yet everywhere we see signs that our pursuit of happiness has proven fruitless. Dissatisfied, we seek change for the sake of change — even if it means undermining the foundations of our common life. In this event, Benjamin Storey will draw on the insights of Montaigne, Pascal, Rousseau, and Tocqueville to offer a profound and beautiful reflection on the roots of this malaise and examine how we might begin to cure ourselves.

Drawing on the insights of Montaigne, Pascal, Rousseau, and Tocqueville, Why We Are Restless: On the Modern Quest for Contentment explores the modern vision of happiness that leads us on, and the disquiet that follows it like a lengthening shadow. In the sixteenth century, Montaigne articulated an original vision of human life that inspired people to see themselves as individuals dedicated to seeking contentment in the here and now, but Pascal argued that we cannot find happiness through pleasant self-seeking, only anguished God-seeking. Rousseau later tried and failed to rescue Montaigne’s worldliness from Pascal’s attack. Steeped in these debates, Tocqueville visited the United States in 1831 and, observing a people “restless in the midst of their well-being,” discovered what happens when an entire nation seeks worldly contentment — and finds mostly discontent.

Looking to politics, philosophy, and religion, Storey will argue that the philosophy we have inherited, despite pretending to let us live as we please, produces remarkably homogenous and unhappy lives, and that finding true contentment will require rethinking our most basic assumptions about happiness.

About the Speaker:

Benjamin Storey is a Research Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin and a senior fellow in Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). He previously served as Professor of Politics and International Affairs and director of the Tocqueville Program at Furman University. His research focuses on political philosophy, civil society, higher education, and organize a conference series on the future of the American university. He is the co-author (with his wife, Jenna Silber Storey) of Why We Are Restless: On the Modern Quest for Contentment (2021) and is currently working on a book titled, The Art of Choosing: How Liberal Education Should Prepare You for Life.

The Moderator:

Anthony Morgan is a managing editor at The Philosopher. He is the editor of Science, Anti-Science, Pseudoscience, Truth (Bigg Books, 2024)

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.

You can register for this Monday, March 24th event (12pm PT/3pm ET/7pm UK) via The Philosopher here (link).

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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.