{"id":1130343,"date":"2025-12-16T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1130343"},"modified":"2025-12-16T18:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T15:00:00","slug":"philosophy-club-is-hot-just-ask-these-gen-z-new-yorkers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1130343","title":{"rendered":"Philosophy Club Is Hot\u2014Just Ask These Gen Z New Yorkers"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Culture<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Philosophy Club Is Hot\u2014Just Ask These Gen Z New Yorkers<\/h1>\n
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By <\/span>No\u00eblle de Leeuw <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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It\u2019s a Wednesday night on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and roughly 75 people, sitting in groups of about four or five each, are engaged in zealous discussion in the library of a new private members\u2019 club. \u201cDo you believe in objective truth?\u201d a young man asks.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re at the New York Philosophy Club, a free weekly event that attracts hundreds of New Yorkers to ponder life\u2019s greatest questions. The discussions last about an hour and a half, structured in three rounds of 30 minutes. In bars, restaurants, and event spaces all over the city, guests talk about wealth, suffering, power, and purpose. (On an average night, the crowd size hovers at about 150, but one night in November drew 400.) On entering, you receive a sheet of paper guiding the conversation, as well as a name tag\u2014first names only. Then you\u2019re ready to philosophize.<\/p>\n

The New York Philosophy Club was founded by three young men, Jawaun Brown (30), Cole Whetstone (29), and Ren Yu (21), who want to \u201crestore meaning and human connection through the shared pursuit of wisdom.\u201d The emphasis here is on the word shared<\/em>. \u201cWe could all be at home reading books by ourselves,\u201d says Brown, \u201cbut what\u2019s the fun in that? Where\u2019s the community?\u201d<\/p>\n

Nobody can say exactly<\/em> when the New York Philosophy Club was founded, and each cofounder has a slightly different story for how it all began for them. Whetstone (who studied classics at Harvard and ancient philosophy at Oxford) and Yu (who briefly studied philosophy in college before switching to finance) had both been hosting their own small philosophical gatherings at their apartments in the spring of 2024. When the two met one night, they instantly connected and decided to combine their groups. Brown, who describes his political science degree as being very theory-heavy, joined the pair the following January, and the club really began to take shape. They now have over two dozen volunteers and an ever-growing list of interested participants.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really wish I had a community like this earlier in my life,\u201d Yu says, \u201cthat just accepted me as I was and allowed me to explore ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels like an intellectual home,\u201d Brown adds. On any given night, they will jump to topics like love and death with perfect strangers. \u201cI\u2019ve had many conversations where we\u2019ve had extremely deep connections with each other,\u201d Yu says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Photo: No\u00eblle de Leeuw<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

During the meeting on the Lower East Side, two men in one group, Alex and Harrison, can\u2019t settle on their definition of storytelling. Alex makes a plea that storytelling is an art form.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, even, at political rhetoric,\u201d he argues. \u201cThat kind of storytelling is an art.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harrison dissents. \u201cIt\u2019s not an art,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s a craft\u2014a skill you can hone.\u201d<\/p>\n

The philosophy club is not about getting every party on the same page, per se. It\u2019s about having a conversation. \u201cWe don\u2019t want you to come in agreeing with everyone,\u201d Brown says. \u201cBut we do want to create a space where people are willing to listen to each other.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In another group, Jackson, who introduces himself as a biologist, is talking about the animal kingdom. A bee will find a delicious flower, he explains, and, upon returning to the hive, will perform a dance to convey as much. That bee is telling a story. The woman opposite him, Lydia, objects: Two bees may be communicating, but is the bee considering what he\u2019s doing an act of storytelling? Or are we humans just labeling it that way?<\/p>\n

Jackson considers this. \u201cIf an act of storytelling occurs,\u201d he muses, \u201cbut no conscious entity is present to perceive it as such, does the story still exist?\u201d Soon talk has turned to the parameters of consciousness itself.<\/p>\n

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Photo: No\u00eblle de Leeuw<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Throughout the night, there\u2019s not a single phone in sight. \u201cPeople want to talk about meaningful things,\u201d Whetstone says, \u201cand they want to meet new people. They want to be seen<\/em> by people. They want to have these kinds of friendships where they don\u2019t have to talk about the weather.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brown, whose day job is in tech, emphasizes the need for offline community building. \u201cYou are a lot more lonely than you feel you should be for how much communication you\u2019re doing,\u201d he says. \u201cWe have communication without community now. So we sort of turned that model on its head, where we\u2019re really creating a community.\u201d<\/p>\n

A little after 9 p.m., Yu announces that the last round of conversation has ended\u2014yet nobody in the room gets up. Nobody even stops talking. At 9:30 p.m., people are still referring to Kant and Rousseau. It isn\u2019t until 10 p.m. that the last group realizes the space is otherwise empty, that the chairs have been folded and put away. It\u2019s not unusual for the Wednesday night philosophers to linger late. According to Yu, a small group will usually stay until the early hours. \u201cOnce,\u201d he says, \u201cI stayed until 6.\u201d<\/p>\n

While discussion flowed on the Lower East Side, a parallel event was going on in Astoria, part of the New York Philosophy Club\u2019s expansion. The founders hope to continue growing in New York and eventually cater to all neighborhoods every week. \u201cThe eventual goal, the North Star\u2014although this is pretty far off,\u201d Yu says, \u201cis to be all over America.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

Source URL: http:\/\/vogue.com\/article\/philosophy-club-is-hot-just-ask-these-gen-z-new-yorkers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Culture Philosophy Club Is Hot\u2014Just Ask These Gen Z New Yorkers By No\u00eblle de Leeuw December 16, 2025 It\u2019s a Wednesday night on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and roughly 75 people, sitting in groups of about four or five each, are engaged in zealous discussion in the library of a new private members\u2019 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1130344,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[50],"class_list":["post-1130343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-vogue-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1130343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1130343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1130343\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1130344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1130343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1130343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1130343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}