Faversham Stoa

Tuesday 21 February 2012 — Buddhism Comes West

This month we will be looking a Buddhism, but not just as another religion with its own specific set of beliefs. We will be considering the question of how Buddhism has moved into western society and culture and how it has adapted and changed during that process of moving.

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Tuesday 17 January 2012 — Bullshit!

In general conversation bullshit refers to anything that one judges is nonsense, stupid, worthless or deceptive. However, the Princeton philosopher, Harry Frankfurt, was not satisfied with this rather loose use of the term and wanted to pin down the essence of bullshit a bit more scientifically and wrote about it in his 1986 paper entitled 'On Bullshit'.

The essence of bullshit, Frankfurt decides, is that it is produced without any concern for the truth. Bullshit needn't be false: "The bullshitter is faking things. But this does not mean that he necessarily gets them wrong." The bullshitter's fakery consists not in misrepresenting a state of affairs but in concealing his own indifference to the truth of what he says.

The questions that we will be setting out to answer in our session are:

• Is there more bullshit around now than in previous generations?
• If the is an increase in bullshit, how do we account for it?
• Why are we more forgiving of the bullshitter than the liar, given that the bullshitter has less respect for the truth than the liar?
• Is bullshit having a morally corrosive effect on society today?

We will also looking at various examples of bullshit in a number of domains which will be illustrated by video clips

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Tuesday 20 December 2011 — Limits to the Scientific Quest?

Science represents one of the most successful of humanity's achievements but the philosophical basis of this activity has provoked much debate. Karl Popper claimed that the important criterion rested with the Falsification Principle in which statements could, in principle, be shown to be erroneous. Later, Thomas Kuhn drew attention to the way in which scientific ideas are propagated with normal science depending on a set of accepted principles and actions, whereas revolutionary science involved discrepant examples that could lead to a paradigm shift and a new way of thinking.

A scientist himself, John Dore, our discussion leader, will attempt to present an analysis of the way that science is actually done and to re-consider whether either of these viewpoints represents an accurate picture of what the practice of science involves.

We shall see that there are vast differences even within the realm of the physical sciences itself as to what constitutes knowledge (energy conservation, molecular interactions, fundamental particles and black holes).

Development in the biological sciences depends on a much less rigorous establishment of ideas and the human sciences engage in concepts, which are themselves open to question with issues such as psyche and consciousness almost impossible to address.

So, is science progressive? Is it goal-oriented in the sense that we are always approaching a better explanation of the world we live in? Are there questions that we cannot or possibly should not address? Where are the limits, conceptual, practical, sociological and philosophical, if they exist at all?

Tuesday 15 November 2011 — Philosophy of Engineering

It is a commonplace that engineering as a source of both products and employment is in decline in the UK. However, we are surrounded by technology to the extent that the way we live depends on systems that have artefacts of all types at their base.

Does the loss of engineering employment provide an indicator of a maturing economy that has moved on or does the fact that 'Made in the UK' is rarely seen have implications for other aspects of our lives including a sense of ourselves as active agents in the world?

Tuesday 18 October 2011 — William James and the case for Universal Consciousness

William James, famed as the father of American psychology, had a great interest in trance mediums who appeared convey knowledge of events that they could not, by the widest stretch of imagination, have acquired naturally.

Although James firmly assented to the conventional view of psychology that "thought is a function of the brain", he was forced to conclude that the very best mediums did have access to paranormal knowledge of some sort.

As a result James developed a theory that the brains of mediums must be letting through consciousness itself which originated outside of themselves.

Chris Bratcher will be discussing James' theory of universal consciousness and it relationship to psychical research.

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Tuesday 20 September 2011 — Freedom

This month we are going to use the current (2011) Reith Lectures as our starting point for a discussion on the question of freedom.

The title of the lectures is 'Securing Freedom' with Burmese activist Aung San Suu Kyi giving the first two entitled 'Liberty' and 'Dissent' respectively. The third, so far, is by former head of MI5, Eliza Manningham-Buller, on issues of the role of the intelligence and security services in protecting those liberties that Aung San Suu Kyi and her like are fighting for.

If you don't get a chance to read or listen to anything else just take a look/listen at the first lecture as this is the one we will mainly be focusing on.

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Tuesday 16 August 2011 — Philosophy in the News

We do not close down over the summer like a lot of groups but our August meeting is always a do-it-yourself session rather that having someone introduce a topic. This month you are invited to bring along a story currently in the press that you think exemplifies a philosphical issue or problem that we can discuss.

Tuesday 19 July 2011 — Post-modernism

Postmodernism is difficult to define embracing as it does so many areas including art, philosophy, literary criticism, scholarship, architecture and food. Furthermore, different proponents give different accounts of what pomo is and are frequently hostile to the very idea of definition. Some even reject the epithet being applied to themselves. Whatever else you say, you have to agree that pomo is controversial. Most pomos will hate the idea of trying to categorise and pin down their ideas - but here goes with a few bullet-points:

1. Disillusionment with modernism and its optimism
2. Rejection of 'Grand Narratives' or big overarching theories
3. Disbelief in objective and absolute truth
4. Subjectivism - There is no meaning to the statement 'the world as it really is. There is just the world as it is to you or me or him or her.
5. There are no facts only interpretations
6. Relativism - both about truth and values
7. Rejection of belief in Progress (with a capital 'P')
8. An attitude of Scepticism, Irony, Cynicism

Tuesday 21 June 2011 — Optimism and Pessimism

Optimism and pessimism are always future-directed. You can only talk about hoping or fearing outcomes that are located in the future and are to some extent currently unknown.

So what is your highest hope for what will happen in the future? What is your worst fear? What is your best bet for what will actually happen?

Can we meaningfully take an optimistic or pessimistic stance viz-a-viz life as a whole? What kinds of argument or evidence can we adduce to persuade others of our belief?

Tuesday 17 May 2011 — Simone Weil

Simone Weil, “religious searcher”, “wayward saint”, French philosopher, labour activist, teacher, factory worker, journalist, revolutionary Marxist, soldier, passivist, anarchist, Christian mystic, Jew and Catholic was born in Paris in 1909 and died in a sanitorium in Ashford in 1943 at the age of 34. She is buried in Bybrook cemetary and there is even a road in Ashford, Simone Weil Avenue, named in her memory. So there is quite a local connection!

Tuesday 19 April 2011 — What now for the nation state?

Global capitalism encourages the growth of transnational organisations that are not rooted in culture, social norms or a value system but nevertheless depend upon the existence of these things in legal jurisdictions to further their interests and ends.

Whilst driven primarily by economic forces acting out in international markets globalisation has also had profound social and political consequences. It could be argued that the emergence of new social and political structures not rooted in the traditional nation state pose a profound threat to what we might think of as the classic liberal democracy. Does this matter? If it does, what can be done about it?

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Tuesday 15 March 2011 — Electoral Reform

In the UK we are to be offered a referendum to change the system by which we vote in general elections. So what is proportional representaton, the single transferable vote? Come and find out!

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Tuesday 15 February 2011 — Religion without supernatural belief

Is it possible to be religious in the absence of a belief in the supernatural? Some people think you can and, indeed, some clergy, notoriously dubbed in the press as "Godless Vicars", take this position. In the early 80's philosopher and theologian Don Cupitt relected on the decline of religious faith in western culture in his TV series 'Sea of Faith'. The TV series gave rise to an organisation of the same name which promoted the view that you could participate in religion as a purely expressive form without any reference to the supernatural claims of religion, their tag-line being: Exploring religion as a human creation. Our discussion will be led by a 'Godless Vicar' (not his own description) who will be arguing that denying a supernatural reality does not necessarily result in atheism and irreligion.

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Tuesday 18 January 2011 — Time

St Augustine famously said in the 4th century: What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know.. He did not have the benefit of a knowledge of the scientific theory of Relativity which seems to imply that the experience of time flowing is really an illusion. But is it? It just seems to raise more questions than it answers.

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Tuesday 21 Dec 2010 — Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men!

Last year, on Dec 20th, the BBC broadcast 'Songs of Praise' from Bethlehem, a Palestinian town under Israeli control. This fact was not even mentioned. There was no reference to the Security Wall that surrounded the town.

Nearly seven years ago, on 27 Jan 2004, Dr Rowan Williams gave a sermon at St George's Jerusalem, in which he said: "This security fence stands as a terrible symbol of the fear and despair that threaten everyone in this city and country, all the communities who share this Holy Land."

We need to know more about the historical background to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. As a country we have a moral responsibility to implement the second part of the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which stated that "It being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine."

Israel depends on the financial support of the United States. President Obama has failed to stop the growth of Israeli settlements. Backed by Christian Zionists, the Jewish lobby has tremendous influence in the USA. The Bible is used to justify the creeping annexation in the West Bank and the siege of Gaza.

There will be an opportunity to discuss the current situation in Israel/Palestine with Tony Crowe who first became involved in the Middle East, when as vicar of St John’s Clapham, he visited Jordan with a Labour Party Delegation in 1970. More...

Tuesday 16 November 2010 — Philosophy of History

Brian Turner is a retired history teacher and will be leading our discussion when we consider some of the classic questions about history. 'History' can mean the past in itself, what actually happened, or our knowledge of what actually happened. What is the relationship between these two? Can we have reliable and objective knowledge about the past? What is nature of historical explanation? How is is different from scientific explanation? Are there such things as impersonal historical laws or is historical change simply driven by outstanding individuals? Or is all history "bunk" as Henry Ford is reputed to have said? More...

Tues 19 Oct 2010 — Scientific Horizons – Reith Lectures

In October we will be discussing the 2010 Reith lecturers given by Martin Rees back in June. Rees is a techno-optimist by his own admission, affirmative even when asking us to contemplate imminent catastrophes of population growth, water shortage and bio-terror. He really does believe that science can solve the major global problems. He argues that scientists should engage with the public more, so that we can understand the policy implications of science better and he believes that pure research and science education must continue to be funded even in these days of cutbacks. You can listen to the radio programs on-line and download the transcripts on the topic page. More...

Tues 21 Sept 2010 — Aphorisms can change your life!

Aphorisms are the oldest way of expressing philosophical and religious ideas. They have the virtue of being brief, concrete and personal but they are not systematic. You could say that they incorporate a 'pre-theoretical' method of recording knowledge. Hipprocrates, the founder of classical Greek medicine, wrote all his medical knowledge in aphorisms as he had no underlying theoretical structure to his ideas. In our 'post-modern' age with its suspicion and rejection of big theories like Marxism and dogmatic religion, could not the aphoristic form be the most appropriate way of expressing our philosophy of life? This session will be a multi-media presentation with the opportunity of discovering, and taking home, an aphorism that speaks to you personally.

Tuesday 17 August 2010 — Ethical clinic

The Stoa continues to meet through the Summer and even though it's the holiday period we normally still get a good turn out. We will be repeating the session we held last year when members are invited to bring along an ethical problem which we will discuss and attempt to answer. In previous years members have come up with some very imaginative (and sometimes hilarious) questions.

Tuesday 20 July 2010 — Etty Hillesum

Etty Hillesum was a young Jewish philosopher and mystic who, like Anne Frank, wrote diaries during the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam between 1941 and 1943 and who later died in Auschwitz. Dr Philip Knight will be introducing us to a philosophy that was formed and lived out under terrible suffering and which demonstrates how a hopeful and meaningful life can be lived under extreme conditions

Tuesday 15 June 2010 — Problems of Christian Belief

With the rise in volume of the New Atheists like Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchen criticism of religious belief is in the news. However, even amongst atheists there is disagreement about how a sound critique of religious belief should be conducted. At this meeting we will be looking at a number of the key objections that atheists often bring against Christian belief and consider ripostes that can be presented. This kind of discussion is what theologians call "apologetics". We hope that one or more of more of the local clergy will be able to come along and participate in our inquiry. More...

Tuesday 18 May 2010 — Belief and Knowledge

Chris Cherry from the University of Kent Philosophy Dept will be leading a discussion on the distinction between belief and knowledge (one that is often confused in ordinary conversation). As far back as Plato many philosophers have defined knowledge as "justified, true belief". In other words knowledge is a species of belief, not just something of which we are subjectively very certain. We will also be considering how, if at all, we can justify our claim to "know" anything at all".

Tuesday 20 April 2010 — Whatever happened to Marxism?

Following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991 it has become received wisdom that communism of the Marxist variety is dead. However, there are still committed Marxist around who continue to argue for the validity of Marx's analysis of capitalism. Sean Sayers from the University of Kent philosophy dept has written and taught extensively on Marxism and will be talking this month on the title "Marxism and the crisis of capitalism" – a very apt title in view of the financial crisis of 2007.

Tuesday 16 March 2010 — Diversity

At its simplest 'diversity' just refers to the fact that modern western society consist of a much more varied population than in the past (an assertion you might feel is open to challenge). But it also carries some ideological overtones as well. 'Respect for diversity', or positively valuing difference, and enshrining this in law and even requiring 'diversity training' in organisations are all prescriptions. Is respect for diversity good for society or does it lead to cultural ghettoization? More...

Tuesday 16 February 2010 — Existentialism

Existentialism is one of those movements that gets philosophy a bad name as it often seems obscure and pretentious with its jargon of being, angst, esse and nothingness. However, in essence it's quite simple. Existentialism emphasises the inescapable freedom of human beings in the croncreteness of life as actually lived and the complete absence of any ultimate grounds for the choices we make. Human nature is not a blueprint we are born to conform to but something we create in the very process of living. More...

Tuesday 19 January 2010 — What is religion for?

This year we will be looking at the phenomenon of religion twice. In our January meeting we will be considering the ten functions that religion fulfils in society and in the individual life of the believer. Then in our June meeting we are hoping to get one or more of the local clergy to come along to discuss "Objections to Christian Belief". This will be an attempt to look at the various popular objections to belief and possible ripostes. More...

Tuesday 15 December 2009 — Animals: Friends and Food

This month we will be looking at our relationship with animals. We exploit them as pets, food and as workers, so what are our ethical responsibilities towards them and should they be granted rights under human law? More...

Tuesday 17 November 2009 — Thought Experiments

Thought Experiments are short stories philosophers and scientists tell to dramatize and clarify a specific problem. We will be looking at a few this month, focusing mainly on the notion of identity. More...

Tuesday 20 October 2009 — Trust

Confucius told his disciple Tsze-kung that three things are needed for good government: weapons, food and trust. If a ruler can't hold on to all three, he should give up the weapons first and the food next. Trust should be guarded to the end: "without trust we cannot stand" More...

Tuesday 15 September 2009 — Immortality and the Soul

Dan Cardinal will be helping us look at the various arguments that Plato put forward supporting the idea of survival after death. We will be going back to basics by starting with his ideas as detailed in the 'Phaedo'. This will be a purely theoretical discussion so you can leave your Ouija boards at home! More...

Tuesday 18 August 2009 — A New Citizenship

This year's Reith lectures on BBC radio were given by Prof Michael Sandel of Harvard University. His general topic was 'A New Citizenship' and the first in the series was about the moral limits of markets. "There are some things money can't buy", he says, "and other things that money can buy but shouldn't". We will be discussing this, his first topic. You can listen to him on-line or download transcripts of his talks. More...

Tuesday 21 July 2009 — Ethical Advice Surgery

A slight change in the programme. We will be doing the ethical surgery this month instead of August. Bring your ethical dilemmas along to the Stoa and we will try to solve them for you. More...

Tuesday 16 June 2009 — Evolution

2009 is Darwin year so it seems only right that we give the great man some time in our schedule. We will not only be thinking about the evidence for evolution but also asking why Intelligent Design seems so attractive to some people and how Darwinism has been applied to social and political philosophy. More...

Tuesday 19 May 2009 — Memory

We will be discussing the nature of memory and some of the conundrums associated with it – like why it is we remember some things and forget others and why, as we get older, time seems to speed up and that while we remember vividly what we did when we were 16 we can't recall what we had for dinner yesterday. Don't forget to come. More...

Tuesday 21 April 2009 — Irrationality

We will be discussing some of the topics dealt with in the book Irrationality by Stuart Sutherland (Pinter and Marchtin, 2007). This is more about the psychology or irrational behaviour than logic and critical thinking. More...

Tuesday 17 March 2009 — A policy for the 21st Century

This is a chance for members of the Stoa to get involved in national affairs! The Compass Organisation, a Labour-aligned think-tank is running a competition to find a policy for the 21st century. Members of the public have been asked to submit their own suggestions and Compass have published all those that have been submitted so far. We will be looking at those policies already submitted to see if we like any of them and also coming up with our own for consideration. More...

Tuesday 17 February 2009 — Embarrassment, Shame and Guilt

Mark Twain said that human beings are the only creatures that blush – or have the need to! What are the characteristics of embarrassment? What do we get embarrassed about and why? Do the RBC managers feel embarrassed or are they immune – as most of us suspect? More...

Tuesday 20 January 2009 — Minds

How do we know other people have minds with inner lives like us? After all, we have no evidence. As far as we know they might be zombies with no inner life at all. This is the topic we will be discussing at our January meeting. Other questions that arise are: do animals have minds? could a computer ever develop a mind and do we really know our own minds as intimately as we like to think? How is self-deception possible if we have clear knowledge of our own minds? More...

Tuesday 16 December 2008 — Monarchy

In the 1950's Malcolm Muggeridge wrote a couple of articles on the Royal Family which seem pretty tame by today's standards but there was a vicious public backlash against him. Muggeridge complained that the Royals had become a soap opera. Subsequent developments seem to have proved him prophetic. So do we still need a Monarchy and could we envisage a state that operated just as effectively without one? More...

Tuesday 18 November 2008 — Privacy

We will be considering, among other things, whether celebrities can reasonably claim a right to privacy (think: Max Mosely) and whether the increase in data kept on us by the State (and Google) threaten our freedoms. More...

Tuesday 21 October 2008 — Karl Popper

Karl Popper was one of the leading philosophers of the 20th century and one of the last to have created a "system". His work embraced both philosophy of science and social theory. He and Wittgenstein met only once, in 1946 at Cambridge, and it is claimed that Wittgenstein waved a poker at Popper in a threatening way (although there are fascinatingly alternative accounts of the incident!). Philosophers were tough in those days! More...

Tuesday 23 September 2008 — Wittgenstein

We have had meetings on all sorts of philosophical topics since we began but none so far on any specific philosopher. In September and October, therefore, we are going to look at two contrasting philosophers of the 20th century. Ben Basing, from the London group of the Philosophy Society of England will be coming down to visit us and give us his take on Wittgenstein and then in October we will be looking at Karl Popper. Please note that this is a slight deviation from our normal 3rd Tuesday of the month. We return to the normal pattern next month. More...

Tuesday 19 August 2008 — Ethical Clinic

Following the success of last year's session discussing practical ethical questions we are going to do it again this year – but with a difference. Please bring along your own ethical dilemmas and the group will see if it can collectively come up with an answer. More...

Tuesday 15 July 2008 — Human Rights

What are human rights and where do they come from? Are they a natural part of us, like our hair and fingernails, or are the only rights we have those created by law? Patti Whaley will introduce the topic and help us investigate whether it makes any sense to talk about natural rights. More...

Tuesday 17 June 2008 — Death!

It has been said that the only certainties in life are death and taxes. Well – we had taxes last month and in April we had old age – so it seems only fitting that we round off our set of depressing topics with the big one – DEATH. We will focus on three questions (1) How should we define death? – not so obvious as it might first seem; (2) Is there such as thing as Natural Death? (3) Is death a misfortune? You might think so but the Stoic Epictetus argued in wasn't. More...

Tuesday 20 May 2008 — The Credit Crunch

Anne Belsey will be navigating us through the intricacies of the 'The Credit Crunch'. More...

Tuesday 15 April 2008 — Ageing, Old Age and Ageism

I hope this topic is not just a function of the average age of our members! More...

Tuesday 18 March 2008 — Utopia

Why have people spent so much time speculating on the best society to live in? And is the notion of a perfect society really coherent – or even desirable? More...

Tuesday 19 February 2008 — Right and Left

The meeting on Tuesday was to have been about Utopia but we have had to put it back to March now. I thought, therefore, that a relevant topic, given the proximity of the Faversham Town Council Elections (May 2008), might be the issue of the difference between Right and Left in contemporary politics. Perhaps if we find an answer to this question we might be on our way to answering next month's question: how to achieve Utopia. More...

Tuesday 15 January 2008 — Technology

To the Victorians their technology was seen as the dawn of a new age which was succinctly symbolised in the Great Exhibition of 1851. However, in the 20th century that belief in inevitable and upward progress became jaded. It began to seem that you could never have utopia without dystopia – that progress was always a trade-off against unavoidable ills of other kinds. As we turned into the new century fresh voices of technological optimism have been raised again as a result of the incredibly rapid advances in IT. Is this optimism justified? Others argue that technology has the potential to destroy our humanity and that it should be rejected. But is not technology a part of our nature as human beings and therefore essential to our humanity? More...

Tuesday 18 December 2007 — Evil

This is not a very seasonal topic – perhaps it would have been better to have had it on Halloween! However, it's a perennial one. Is evil a metaphysical force or is human evil always explicable in terms of ordinary human psychology? If so, what does that tell us about ourselves? The notion of evil comes out of a religious context but can it still have a meaning for those who have given up religious belief? We generally have no trouble with the idea of moral saints – really good people – but can you have thoroughgoing moral monsters too? Consider the Mooor's murderers, Brady and Hindley. Were they essentially different from us normal folk, and if so, how should we deal with such people in a civilized society? More...

Tuesday 20 November 2007 — Tolerance

Without some degree of tolerance in society our lives would be literally "intolerable". But what are the limits of tolerance? If we fail to tolerate expressions of racial and sectarian intolerance are we being inconsistent? Is it right sometimes to be simply indifferent to certain practices and attitudes? More...

Tuesday 16 October 2007 — Britishness and Multiculturalism

Gordon Brown recently spoke in favour of a common culture in Britain. He wants us all to embrace a national identity of "Britishness" that is inclusive and tolerant. But what is it to be British? If you don't pass the "cricket test" have you failed to be patriotic? And what is the difference between nationalism and patriotism? More...

Tuesday 18 September 2007 — Money

It's funny stuff – money. It only exists because we all agree that it exists but without it you can literally die. How does it work and what does it mean to us? Are credit and debt good or bad for us as individuals and the economy? We all agree that poverty is a bad thing but why can't we end it? Is it really conceivable we can end global poverty by 2012? More...

Tuesday 21 August 2007 — The Future

The future does not exist. Well – not yet anyway. So how does something non-existent, like the future, affect the meaning of our lives? And what do owe to future generations of human beings who do not exist? More...

Tuesday 17 July 2007 — Moral Dilemmas & Being Good

We will be thinking through some tricky ethical dilemmas in this session. Discussion will be based on some realistic problems in ethics. Like the Windmill Theatre during the war our motto is "We Never Close". We continue meeting through the summer even if only a few turn up. More...

Tuesday 19 June 2007 — Religion – Good and Bad

Richard Dawkins has asserted in this best-seller, The God Delusion, that ALL religion is bad – the root of all evil in fact. Is this true? Can we distinguish between good and bad religion? More...

Tuesday 15 May 2007 — The Ethics of War

Is the attempt to connect ethics and war a self-contradiction and, for instance, can the invasion of Iraq be justified? More...

Tuesday 17 April 2007 — Feminism

Is Feminism a spent force now that women have achieved equality in the workplace? Virginia Burton, a member of the Fawcett Society, will be leading our discussion. More...

Tuesday 20 March 2007 — Education

What is education for and are our schools and colleges really providing it? Our discussion will be led by Lisa McNulty, a PhD student currently studying at the University of Kent. More...

Tuesday 20 February 2007 — The Paranormal

Is there more between Heaven and Earth than dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio? Or are psychical phenomena just the result of fraud and self-delusion? More...

Tuesday 16 January 2007 — Punishment

What good does punishing criminals do and how can we justify punishment? This discussion will be led by Andrew Birkin, who has been working with offenders for many years, both in the Probation service and Kent Social Services. More...

Tuesday 21 December 2006 — Christmas Philosophical Social

...or Philosophical Christmas Social? ...and discussion of "Enchantment" with special reference to the famous 19th century letter to a US newspaper "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus". (Email for details).

Thursday 16 November 2006 — Animals and Us

Our relationship with animals, how we think about them, how we communicate with them, how we use and exploit them and the ethics of killing them. More...

Thursday 19 October 2006 — Messing About with Nature

This session was originally to have been about cloning but we have widened it out to cover all those forms of technology by which we human beings interfere with and "adjust" nature: cloning, AID, genetic engineering, xenotransplants (ie, transplants from animals) etc. There is a high YUK factor here. But just because we feel discomfort or disgust over something, does that justify our banning it? Is there an ethical dimension here? Is it simply wrong to tamper with nature? Is it a matter of safety? Should we avoid tampering with delicate biological systems because we cannot know what the long-term consequences will be? Or are we just being Luddite? Is all this fear and loathing just the normal response we have to all new technologies? Richard Norman from the University of Kent has written and spoken extensively on this issue and will lead our discussion. More...

Thursday 28 September 2006 — Knowledge, Truth & Literature

Literature is largely fiction and therefore untrue, so in what sense can we learn from it? Does it teach us anything about human life that we cannot learn from the social sciences? This discussion will be led by Brian Godden from Canterbury. (PLEASE NOTE - This is a change from our normal 3rd Thursday). More...

Thursday 17 August 2006 — Happiness!

This is a change from the previously publicised topic. Bit of a contrast to July's topic! More...

Thursday 20 July 2006 — Euthanasia

This is currently a hot topic since the recent defeat of Lord Joffe's bill. The main conflict seems to be between those who feel that personal autonomy should take priority and those who believe the social consequences are of overriding concern. RIGHTS vs CONSEQUENTIALISM! Come and cast your vote. Philip Knight from Canterbury will be leading the discussion. More...

Thursday 15 June 2006 — Artificial Intelligence

Science Fiction is full of dire warnings about what happens when the machines get out of our control but is it really feasible that one day computers will be able to think? A lot depends on your definition of thinking. Some philosophers believe that there is something about the way computers are constructed that renders it impossible that they would ever become conscious. Others say "Well -- we are meat machines and we think so why shouldn't metal and silicone machines develop thinking!". After this you may never look at your laptop the same way again! More...

Thursday 18 May 2006 — Freewill and Determinism

Are we really responsible for our actions? If we gave up the idea that we are free, what would be the social consequences? More...

Thursday 29 April 2006 — Forgiveness

What is the good of forgiveness? Can you forgive unconditionally without an apology from the perpetrator? Is forgiveness an obligation? Is it right to withhold forgiveness in certain circumstances? Are some crimes unforgivable? More...