We might ask: what makes an experience philosophical, and worry about saying the right words, referencing the right authors, choosing the right concepts, constructing an argument with a rigorous logic, or sounding important or academic enough to impress a certain audience… Instead, Philosophical Happenings is founded upon asking exactly the inverse. When gathered according to the spirit of discussion, cooperation, and the reciprocity of ideas, philosophy is already underway.
This offshoot of the Philosophy Café Project asks: how do the spaces we inhabit affect the processes of our philosophical activities? Acknowledging that philosophy is multi-modal, involving all the personal and interpersonal senses, we dive into an exploration of scents, sounds, tastes, visions, textures; interactions, engagements, and experimental processes. Philosophy needs roots, connections and networks that dig into the ground, expand into the sky, that soak up and thicken around more than just ideas, but environments, others, and selves. Happenings happen, and leave their marks; we, together, would like to discover how to weave ourselves around, within, and through them.
Philosophical Happenings will take place in selected environments that test, tweak, and stimulate the senses usually left aside when one thinks of philosophy as the sedentary vocation. Experiments in philosophy involve more than the running-together of ideas. The spirit of a practical philosophy—a philosophy in touch with life—opens up a world of modalities outside the common register, outside of the classroom, the institution, the four-walls-and-a-roof style of indoor thinking. Getting out of the philosopher’s armchair involves much more than thinking about the ‘real world’. It involves thinking with the world, in the world, and as part of worlds that move beyond the quiet couch, steady ambient lighting, and environments turned down so that we can use our inside-voices.
In these Philosophical Happenings, we may read, we may chat, we may sit quietly, we may converse loudly. Each Happening involves a clear beginning, and a clear ending—the beginning and ending of a certain kind of staged experience, a rupture in the typical configuration of thought and its context. What will be fixed are the shifting scenes, the attention to presence, and the reflection on how our worlds are reflected in our thoughts.
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A first invitation is in the oven.... take a look of it here...