Getting to know us, the Philosophy Café Project -PCP
All our history, and of course also our stories, remain open and under construction. Holding space for this open- and ongoing-ness is the heart of this project. Nevertheless, we also feel the need to find a way to introduce ourselves. Here's an attempt at it...
- What is the "PCP"?
PCP is a platform that hosts different philosophical experiments marked by a cooperative, collective, and non-institutional(izable) spirit. Philosophy is much more than what institutions have done to and with it (for better or worse); that’s why we’re drawn to those experiences which, without denying the institutional, remain joyfully independent from it, in other spaces and other temporalities of philosophical practice. We’re drawn to informal but not unstructured philosophical experiences—those always in motion, always becoming, forever happily open, unfinished, and unfinishable.
Intuition—not just as a method but as a mood, a way of breathing and thinking, of inhabiting the philosophical fold— is the basis of this project. By turning into, and developing philosophical articulations of intuition, we continue to move forward in our attempt to create philosophy as something we shape together—and that always asks us to keep shaping it, while it shapes us as we continue to be shaped by it...
- Where does the "PCP" come from?
Berlin, 2025; Winter, Spring, Summer —standing in line, a cat, and knots; contingent encounters lucky enough to recur—Chris and Camilo felt the urge to bring into reality a set of intuitions that, beyond ourselves, became a shared resonance. A workshop, a few gatherings, a string of activities… an expansive platform. PCP was born over a mate session, somewhere between a hammock and a desk, sharing lunch and dreaming up ways in which philosophy might find space among a broader, more inclusive “everyone”. Together, we began, with the help of many, many friends, to begin to dismantle the division between public and privatized philosophy in the city, and beyond.
- What does the "PCP" do?
That first encounter sparked three initial lines of work, formed around the core idea that philosophy, as the purposeful construction of applicable concepts and their connections, can really do something in and beyond our lives. One already alive and thriving: the Philosophy Café, two gradually taking shape, hopefully soon ready to see the light: Peripatetic Philosophy, and another still under the code-name of Philosophical Happenings. By clicking each link, you can find more detailed information about each of them.
PCP is permanently open to hosting new initiatives. If anything in this brief introduction resonates with you, or if you’d like to contribute in any way, don’t hesitate to write us an email (berlin.cafe.philosophy@gmail.com).
- Who is the "PCP"?
Chris Droppa and Camilo Rios gave the first impulse to this adventure. You can learn more about each of us by clicking on our names.
But, to paraphrase an (in)famous pair of philosophers: since each of us is already several, together we’re always already many. Each of us carries a list of thank-yous, inspirations, and co-conspirators so long that it would be futile to try to fit it all here.
- About the "PCP" image?
The generous hand of our friend Carlos Segovia—his talent for drawing (he might say he’s interested in diagramming as a philosophical practice, or something along those lines…)—and his sharp complicity inspired us to take on an image. We can say about it, borrowing some of Carlos’s own words:
“Despite its simplicity, all the components are there—intuition (through the zigzagging line, which Rodchenko famously introduced as the minimal unity–gesture) + composition/construction (for a zigzagging line is simultaneously formed by three lines!); both components reappear as well through the discontinuous line (which can only be intuited, as it’s not fully formed, and at the same time brings completion to the figure: the hourglass which, moreover, represents thought’s time, in addition to thought’s space, represented in turn by the rectangle!) + worlding (if, in the last distance, all worlds are formed by a possible delimitation: this world, it means they are made through the making at once of sameness and difference: this and that: the two triangles of the hourglass, one above looking down, the other one below looking up). Then, the curved lines add SPONTANEITY as one of intuition’s potential heteronyms. Less visible components add a further touch of CONSTRUCTIVISM; and the dance the non-coincident superimposed rectangles have adds a touch of PERMANENT REFOCUSING, i.e., thought’s distinctive activity.”
All of that—but at the same time much more and also much less—is what happens and happens to us. All of that, in that image, is also part of the invitation that PCP is and extends, like the sea with its endless waves…
With the additional help of Yaesul, our tech-savvy collaborator and digitalization specialist, the PCP image transitioned from sketch to digital reality. Stay tuned for more diagrammatic creations created with her helping hand in the re-cap sections of each session.