After specifying the difference between conscious experience and intelligent behaviour, we will consider what the elements of human conscious experience must be and what must be necessary for the brain to create experience, and then, by analogy, consider what must be necessary for a computer to be made conscious. Grant Bartley, Editor Philosophy Now...
This talk, given in Zurich in 2010, shows Daniel Dennett at his best. As ever, he is both informative and immensely entertaining. He discusses how consciousness arose in conjunction with language and culture (memes) and illustrates it with brilliant examples. Professor Daniel Dennett, Tufts University, USA
This event is online only Join Professor Bruce Hood as he explores the themes raised in his latest book "Possessed". The talk will cover man’s need to own possessions, the background to those needs and in view of the current climate emergency, what should we be doing? Bruce Hood has been the Professor of Developmental...
Please note: this event is online only For many decades science has been contributing more to advances in philosophical understanding than the humanities. The talk this evening makes the case that philosophy needs to rely more on the sciences and less on ancient authority. New understanding has come from evolutionary biology, genetics, neuroscience, operational research,...
You can watch this event LIVE at Queen Square or online; please select the relevant tickets when booking. It is anticipated that over the next 10 years robots and AI-systems will become ubiquitous in our homes, schools, hospitals and care-homes. The first instinct of most human users is to make sense of robots by treating...
Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution and The Royal Institute of Philosophy present: FREE 6th Form Seminars, Thursdays from 5.30pm – 7.00pm (First seminar Thursday 4 November, last seminar Thursday 9 December) A series of free seminars via Zoom, exploring the fundamental questions of philosophy, why it is important and its meaning in relation to...
This event is now online only. A transition to more sustainable societies requires substantial shifts in how people live. But are people ready for these shifts, or are these shifts incompatible with human nature? Dr Paul Bain will explore these questions from a psychological perspective, exploring what is known (or assumed to be known) about...
Please note: this event is online only The question of free will has preoccupied philosophers for millennia. In recent years the debate has been reinvigorated by the findings of neuroscience and, for some, the notion that we have free will has finally been laid to rest. Not so, says Raymond Tallis. In his quest to...
This event is online only Philosophers have failed for millennia in their search for the moral truth. The reason is that no such thing exists. Despite this, our morality is of profound importance and there is much that we can understand about it. Don Cameron, Philosophy co-convenor, Bath Royal Literary & Scientific Institution
This event is online only In the last few decades, virtual reality has been increasingly used in clinical psychology, including neuropsychology, because of its ability to create experiences that are very similar to those in real life and the possibility to maintain control over stimuli and therapeutic strategies that would otherwise not be possible in...
Please note: this event is ONLINE only. Every week modelling teams from around the world submit forecasts of COVID-19 case numbers, hospitalisations and death counts (in the US) to the COVID-19 Forecast Hub. The US Center for Disease Control (CDC) uses these forecasts to build a single ensemble forecast which is communicated to public health officials and used to guide decision-making. The...
The philosophy of G.W.F Hegel is notoriously difficult and complex, yet to many it is profound and has influenced the world in which we live more than any other philosopher past or present. His magnum opus, the Phenomenology of Spirit, lays out a vast and all-encompassing paradigm of history, progress and freedom as a continuous...
The modern period of philosophy begins in the seventeenth century. For many, Wittgenstein is the last great philosopher in this period. This lecture/talk considers some of the key elements in his thought. Dr Karim Esmail, University of Oxford
Susan Blackmore is one of the UK’s most eminent psychologists, lecturers. speakers and writers who is best known for her book, ‘The Meme Machine’. Her repertoire of topics is astounding, ranging from evolution, memes (the view that ideas, as they are copied from one human brain to another, evolve by natural selection), consciousness, Humanism, religion...
Professor Raihani will illuminate the role of co-operation in the human story: why we live in families, why women experience the menopause, and why we routinely help complete strangers. She will also explore the dark side of co-operation, looking at how co-operation creates victims, where co-operation fails, and why we sometimes cheat. Professor Raihani will...
Philosophy since the ancient Greeks, and before them in India and China, has been about how we humans should live. The three schools of classical western philosophy--the Sceptics, Stoics and Epicureans - all identified its goal as ataraxia, a condition of unshakable tranquillity. But what is it about the human situation that gives rise to...
One of the persistent problems in the Western philosophical tradition is to answer the question; can a proposition be meaningful if it is not true? This is reflected in our language. When we say an experience is meaningful we mean it is thrilling, vivid or authentic. When we complain life lacks meaning it’s as if,...
Standard accounts of philosophical reasoning focus on rules of deductive logic, valid arguments, fallacies and so on. Although these are all important, in this talk Dr Julian Baggini wants to switch the focus to the attitudes and habits of thought advocated by "virtue epistemology". He will argue that the formal dimensions of reasoning are less...
The talk will introduce Jeremy Bentham, regarded as the founder of utilitarianism, and the work of John Stuart Mill. It will cover ‘rule utilitarianism’ and ‘act utilitarianism’, the difference between utilitarianism and deontology, the idea of the hedonic calculus and the development of utilitarianism and consequentialism. The achievements of utilitarianism and its contemporary importance will...
The fundamental nature of reality has been one of the traditional preoccupations of philosophy. In this talk Professor Tallis will look critically at the very idea of ‘reality’, at ways of thinking about the question ‘What is real?’, and at the belief that we should look to natural science to provide the most authoritative answer...
Are you living the best life you could be? If not, an upcoming talk from the philosophy programme at BRLSI suggests you do it with a little help from Socrates. Join Dr Don Cameron to discover how the great philosophers can begin to help you find happiness. Could it be that the results of research...
How might our more eccentric behaviours be linked to Pathogens? One area of research has investigated the psychological and behavioural defences that evolved in response to pathogens, and how the findings from this research have informed our understanding of emotions, social perception, and cultural variation. Disgust, prejudice, and conformity, which seem to be unrelated phenomena,...
Are you living the best life you could be? If not, an upcoming talk from the philosophy programme at BRLSI suggests you do it with a little help from Socrates. Join Dr Don Cameron to discover how the great philosophers can begin to help you find happiness. Could it be that the results of research...
BRLSI’s Café Philo has returned, designed to encourage lively group discussion on philosophical explorations of important contemporary issues. Is the world becoming a better place? From a philosophical perspective, what does the question even mean, and if it is getting better whom is it getting better for? With so many questions to answer, the philosophy...
There is a question everyone has to ask and answer – in fact, has to keep on asking and keep on answering. It is ‘How should I live my life?’, meaning ‘What sort of person should I be? What values shall I live by? What shall I aim for?’ The great majority of people do...
Ludwig Wittgenstein’s treatment of rule-following in the Philosophical Investigations raised a number of debates in philosophy, from worries about how we know what we mean, to discussions about the possibility of inexpressible understanding. This discussion touches on many of the key themes throughout the Investigations such as the critique of the Augustinian view of language...
How do we equip young people – and the experts of tomorrow – to be effective in an uncertain world? How do we manage uncertainty and ambiguity productively and creatively? Recent global and social events – COVID 19, accelerated climate change, the rise of extremism and the backlash against ‘wokeness’ - have ruptured our faith...
In The New Leviathans, John Gray allows us to understand the world of the 2020s with all its contradictions, moral horrors and disappointments through a new reading of Hobbes' classic work. The collapse of the Soviet Union ushered in an era of near-apocalyptic triumphalism in the West: a genuine belief that a rational, liberal, well-managed future now...
How do we test the paranormal? Although the main research focus of the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit in the Department of Psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London, is the development and, where possible, testing of non-paranormal explanations of ostensibly paranormal experiences, they have devoted considerable time and effort to directly testing paranormal claims. This talk...
At the heart of all sciences is measurement – the reduction of the answer to the question ‘What is out there?’ to ‘How much is out there?’. This talk, which is a critique not of science but of scientism, will look critically at the belief that measurement will lead to a Theory of Everything and...