Welcome to the Edinburgh Existentialist Philosophy Reading Group! We read books, essays and stories that are historically or thematically linked to the existentialist tradition, and then we meet up weekly to talk about them. We've been reading Nietzsche, Camus, Kafka, Kierkegaard, Sartre, Heidegger and a bunch of others - take a look at our past & upcoming meetings for an idea of what we're about.
Everyone is welcome to attend. We meet in University of Edinburgh rooms, but we’re a community group and not affiliated with the university - no academic background is necessary. Our members have varying levels of prior involvement in philosophy, so even if this is your first time reading a philosophical text, please come along!
We’re always happy to welcome newcomers, even if we're half way through a long read - feel free to dive in at some point along the way. Our conversations are open, respectful, lively & wide-ranging. You might get a little more from the conversation if you've read at least some of the text, but don't worry, we're not going to test you on it :)
Our group provides opportunities for:
meeting like-minded people interested in existentialist philosophy - enjoying philosophical reading, thinking, and discussion
finding much needed peer-support & accountability for untangling these famously unintuitive texts - helping each other to keep up & to understand
sharing one’s personal relationship to the text: "what this means for me"
developing one’s own philosophical worldview and personal canon of important texts
See https://sites.google.com/view/edinburgh-existentialists/reading-suggestions for our list of past & present reading suggestions. Anyone who's been to at least one meeting can nominate, and we select our next readings by poll in our WhatsApp group chat.
Our group is really friendly and helpful.
If you've got any questions you're not too sure of feel free to ping our admins (Ben, Lachlan, Marton, Livia, and Richard) a message or grab us for a quiet word on a Weds night.
Or you can also email edinburghexistentialists@gmail.com with questions/feedback.
Also see our FAQ for more details: FAQ Document