NYC Philosophy and Psychology Readers Community

In the short story Jonas or the Artist at Work by Camus, the theme of the tension between our desire for independence and our longing for interdependence was on full display. This theme has been explored throughout the Existentialist's writing we have been reading and will be continued for this week as we read the short play No Exit by Sartre which has been famously summarized as "Hell is other people."

In this groundbreaking work, Mircea Eliade challenges the modern assumption that we live in a wholly secular world. He argues that even contemporary people remain shaped by deep, often unconscious patterns rooted in the experience of the sacred. Through a wide-ranging analysis of sacred space, time, myth, nature, and cosmic symbolism, Eliade examines how these structures organized human experience for pre-modern cultures and how they persist today.

Join us to discuss this classic book over the course of 4-weeks!
Week 1 Sat 3/7 12:30pm-2:30pm The Seahorse Room @ Pier 57
Week 2 Sat 3/14 12:30pm-2:30pm The Seahorse Room @ Pier 57
Week 3 Sat 3/21 4pm-6pm*note time* The Oyster Room @ Pier 57
Week 4 Sat 3/28 12:30pm-2:30pm The Oyster Room @ Pier 57

Reading for Week 1
Introduction & Chapter 1 (56 pages)

Welcome to the NYC Philosophy & Psychology Readers Spring 2026 Colloquium!

The topic for this colloquium is "What is Reason and what is it good for?". We will have two talks and discussions related to this topic.

Since 2019 this meetup group has enabled readers of philosophy and psychology to come together to form friendships and foster insights by engaging in thoughtful discussions on significant concepts discovered from reading books and intellectual consumption.

### ❗ IMPORTANT RSVP INFO

We encourage you to attend both talks, they are designed to go together. However, each session has its own RSVP link below — please RSVP to each talk individually. This allows us to better manage space requirements and the specificities of each event. Space is limited, seating is first-come, first-served. Seating capacity is 40 seated, (or ~70 if everyone stands up).

⚠️ Sessions will begin once the speaker is ready and the room is seated. Please arrive on time, as no late entry will be allowed after a session begins.

🧠 NYC Philosophy & Psychology Readers Spring Colloquium 2026 (#NYCPPRC) - Saturday, March 7th 2026

🎤 Agenda

We have all at some point used the words logical vs. illogical or rational vs. irrational as words to mark our agreement or disagreement with someones actions. So we have some idea of what these words mean, but in my experience, we use these words in wildly different ways throughout everyday conversation. One of the objectives of philosophy is to get clear about concepts. Hence the goal of this talk is to get clear about what reason and logic mean for the analytic philosophers while exploring the history of this development by Frege, Russell, and Wittgenstein. We will introduce the concept of a valid and sound argument which will motivate two questions 1. What does it mean for an argument to be logical? 2. How do we pick true premises? The discussion of these questions will lead us to Wittgenstein's ideas in On Certainty as we meditate on the insight that "Explanation begins somewhere."

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