Forum for Philosophy

Marriage is an odd mix of sex, religion, and politics. Our speakers ask what marriage is and whether there is there any distinctive moral value in it. Should the state promote it? Is it possible to have an ‘equal’ marriage, or is marriage fundamentally an oppressive institution? Should marriage be rejected in favour of civil partnerships, or something else, or perhaps nothing else?

Looking for love? Ask your computer, since 1 in 5 couples now first meet online. Have we outsourced love to abstract algorithms? And what about elections or our summer getaways? From the targeted marketing of political campaigns to the predictive typing that preempts your Google search, machines may know us better than we know ourselves. We explore how far modern life is mediated by the computation of data, and ask whether we should trust in the algorithm or find ways to outwit it.

What is disability and how has it been understood historically and across different cultures? How is disability presented in the arts and in our changing idea of what it means to be human? Is the term ‘disability’ useful for the development of disability rights or does it fail to capture the diversity of disabled experience? We will address these questions and consider the nature of disabled experience and the ways in which society is disabling.

Race continues to shape the political, cultural, and economic character of our societies, with communities and resources determined along racial lines. But what is race and why is it so significant? Is it simply another form of social classification grounded in inequality, conflict, and violence? If so, how are we to understand race as a resource for cultural cohesion rooted in shared histories? Our speakers will consider what we understand by race, and the relationships between race, inequality, and prejudice.

How seriously should philosophical worries about mathematics be taken? And should mathematical results ever force our philosophical hands? Philosophers and mathematicians have often found plenty to disagree about throughout history, but there have been many fruitful interactions too. We indulge in a bit of group therapy, examining some key cases of philosophical and mathematical interaction. Does infinitesimal mathematics commit us to an infinitely divisible world? Do the prime mating cycles of cicadas tell us something about the existence of mathematical objects? Let’s run the numbers…

Is everything we do the product of unconscious brain processes that are beyond our control? If so, what happens to moral and criminal responsibility if a defendant can always argue, ‘my brain made me do it’? And if free will does exist, could other animals possess it too? We bring together a philosopher, a psychiatrist, and a neuroscientist to discuss what recent research into the brain might mean for our understanding of free will.

For Victor Hugo, "all forms of the multiple reality, actions and ideas, man and humanity" can be found in Shakespeare. Perhaps this is the reason why, over 400 years after his death, we continue to study, perform, and re-read his plays in search of truths about ourselves and the world. Should we think of Shakespeare as a philosopher? Can reading him philosophically add to our understanding of his work, or is it simply another way of trying to contain this "myriad-minded" (Coleridge) thinker?

Women and minority groups are significantly underrepresented in politics and various other walks of life. "Affirmative action" is one response in tackling this enduring issue. But what is it? Who is it for? And why does it generate so much controversy? We discuss these questions and explore the relationship between affirmative action and social justice.

Humans have always co-existed with animals, using them as tools, resources, and, more recently, companions. More abstractly, animals help us to understand ourselves; they are ‘good to think with’ (Claude Lévi-Strauss). What roles do animals play in our understanding of issues as wide as ethics, art, friendship, and technology? And what does it mean for understanding ourselves if we seriously acknowledge our relationships with other animals? Coinciding with the publication of The Edinburgh Companion to Animal Studies, we will consider the relevance of animals to a wide range of contemporary concerns.

"Reason" and "knowledge", and the relationship between them, were major themes in Enlightenment philosophy, and drew the attention of some of the most respected philosophers of the time, including Decartes, Leibniz, and Spinoza, often referred to as the rationalists, and Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, the so-called empiricists. Since then, the empiricists have tended to have the upper hand in intellectual life, if not always in philosophy. In this event, we discuss what was at stake in these debates, what we might say about these ideas today, and whether we’ve been too quick to dismiss rationalism.

"All that I know most surely about morality and obligations, I owe to football", observed Albert Camus. And it is football, above all other sports, that so many philosophers revere. So there’s everything to play for in this panel discussion exploring the relationship between football and philosophy. We give it 110% in our exploration of what makes for a "good game" and whether philosophical principles can be put into play on the pitch.

Philosophers have diligently examined consciousness, but what do they have to say about our nightly loss of consciousness? In an age of mindfulness, is there something to be said for sleepfulness too? And for those of us still rubbing our eyes at 4am, what is it that keeps us awake in the wee small hours? With apparently two-thirds of Britons suffering from sleep problems, this Forum event promises to be your wake-up call, exploring the science, philosophy and literature of sleep.

Science is often mistakenly thought to involved nothing but cold reason. In reality, very human acts of creativity appear everywhere. We explore the role of imaginative thinking in science. Are thought experiments sources of knowledge or just hypotheses? Can a story or narrative also be a scientific explanation? And how should a scientist balance creative thinking with respect for the facts?

What if instead of worrying about truth as a fundamental, objective notion, we just focused on what works? What if we just believed in what is practical or beneficial to us to believe? Pragmatism is the great American contribution to philosophy, and it has serious implications for politics, philosophy, and science. Join us to discuss the history of this idea,…