Where to speak about new philosophies?

May 8, 2014 7:45 PM

Suppose you had new philosophical and/or religious ideas meant to be taken seriously. Suppose they were relatively unaffiliated with any particular religious community or conventional academic conversation. Suppose you were not a celebrity. Where, particularly in New York City, would be places open to new speakers with these kinds of ideas? Where might sophisticated, sympathetic, open-minded audiences be found?
posted by shivohum to Religion & Philosophy (7 answers total)

From my reading of history, most of the interesting new and influential ideas often get off to a rocky start. So if you run into resistance, it's part of the plan.

Years ago there were Chautauqua. Not so much anymore, but the time might be right someday for a revival.
posted by ovvl at 8:50 PM on May 8, 2014

Maybe a TEDx event. I've seen people with pretty weak, random ideas get scheduled for those in my area (not NYC). The chances for someone in the situation you describe could be decent.
posted by Monsieur Caution at 9:57 PM on May 8, 2014 [2 favorites]

.... reddit maybe? Seriously, they have /r/philosophy/.

example of (what may be) a decent discussion: consequentialsim_and_the_publicity_problem

It's not meatspace, but one might get decent critique and engagement.

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Also New York City's own cafe philosophique. "We meet every other Thursday 6:30 - 8:30pm at Bamiyan Restaurant, 358 3rd Avenue at 26th Street in Manhattan, NY"
posted by sebastienbailard at 10:01 PM on May 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

I'd look for unsympathetic audiences to test my ideas and put them through their paces.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 12:16 AM on May 9, 2014 [8 favorites]

Dunno about NYC, but Meetup.com in my city has a few discussion groups for philosophy. I attended one, and the conversation was fairly light, but still interesting and fun. Mostly I guess these groups have themes and readings to stimulate specific conversation, but there should be some unstructured talking time too.

These things are also full of people looking for new acquaintances and stuff to do, so if you become familiar you can just post something on the message board, like "anyone wanna meet up at X's Nice Coffee Place next Tuesday, I think I've solved the is-ought problem." Or just chat up the most sympathetic-seeming people in the hallway.
posted by mbrock at 1:55 AM on May 9, 2014

Response by poster: Thanks for the suggestions so far.

I'd look for unsympathetic audiences to test my ideas and put them through their paces.

I'd be happy to talk to unsympathetic audiences if they were willing to hear me out. If anyone has suggestions for such groups, please put 'em here.
posted by shivohum at 6:37 AM on May 9, 2014

Yeah, I would look at similar Meetups (There are so many in NYC, and some of them are pretty offbeat) for religion/philosophy/etc, go to some of them, meet people, and then be like hey! I'm starting a meetup for SunStar Philosophies - A New Belief System or whatever.
posted by sweetkid at 7:29 AM on May 9, 2014