Eastside Thinkers is a club for people near the Eastern beaches who would like to meet to talk about philosophy and similar interesting things.

Objectives:

• Interesting discussions
• Socialising
• Learning from each other about new things to think about and new ways to think about things we already know, perhaps even solutions to problems
• Not aiming to reach any conclusions, although it may occasionally happen by chance that all members reach a common view

Meetings: approximately monthly, on an evening determined by the group. Currently we are expecting most meetings to be on Fridays or Wednesdays.

Time and Duration of meetings: about 2 hours, starting at 8pm on Wednesdays or Fridays, with members gathering at the venue from 730 for pre-meeting chit-chat.

Membership: New members join via invitation, proposed by a member and endorsed by the group. The group is intended to be fairly local - aimed at people from the Randwick, Waverley and Woollahra municipalities. If anybody wanted to participate from further afield that would be fine, except we probably wouldn’t hold meetings at their house for transport reasons.

Number of people: 6-10.

Location: At a member’s house, with the venue rotating through the houses of those members that have a suitable location and room and are willing to host. The host provides snacks and drinks, but not dinner (this is an after-dinner meeting, not an over-dinner meeting). The key aspect that makes a room suitable is the ability for the number of people in the group to be comfortably seated in such a way that they can all see one another without having to crane. The location of each meeting will be advised a few days before the meeting.

Format of meetings:

Each meeting will have a person as thought starter, chosen at a previous meeting. Their role is to research the meeting’s topic, identify useful pre-reading and prepare a talk to get things started. The talk will explain the issue, give some background, present ideas that other people (eg philosophers, statesmen/women, artists, scientists) have had about the issue, and generally get enough subject matter into the arena to precipitate a good discussion. It should also pose a number of specific questions that can serve as a framework for discussion. The talk length should be in the range 5-30 minutes. Any shorter than five minutes would probably be insufficient to break the ice, set the scene, get people’s minds engaged with the issue and build up some momentum. A thought starter who found tons of fascinating material might want to go towards the long end of the range, but it shouldn’t be any longer, as people will want to get into discussing the issue.

Further information on the guidelines for discussion are on this page.

The default assumption will be that the person who originally proposed a topic is the thought starter for the meeting in which it is discussed. However, there may be occasions on which the proposer does not want to act as thought starter, in which case somebody else would fulfil that role (given enough notice).

Most meetings will have some preparatory reading and/or other materials like podcasts or videos. This reading will be advised by the thought starter for the topic, no later than the meeting preceding the one at which the topic is to be discussed. The reading will be material that addresses or otherwise illuminates the issue to be discussed. Unlike a book club, the pre-reading will not be essential, as many of the issues may be ones that most thoughtful people have thought about at some time in their life. Also, the thought starter’s talk will usually present a summary of ideas from the reading. However, a more enjoyable discussion will probably be likely if at least two or three people other than the thought starter have read the pre-reading.

See the 'Guidelines for Discussion' page for more detail on how we try to run the discussions.

Discussion topics

The club will maintain a schedule of topics to be discussed at future meetings. The aim will be to have between three and six topics on the schedule. Members may propose topics for addition to the schedule. If members agree to a topic proposal, it will be added to the schedule. It may be added in earlier than already-scheduled items, moving the later items back by one month, if members agree.

For more detail see the pages Potential Discussion Topics, Topics agreed for future discussion and Past Topics.

Contact

If you want to contact the club, send an electronic mail to the address in the image below.