The Royal Institute of Philosophy

After watching a short animated video, Dr Laura D’Olimpio will facilitate a philosophical discussion exploring ideas related to the question: When can nature be considered art?

 

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• Based on: Peacock's Art Exhibition

We think of perfumes as objects that serve a purpose, that is, to make us smell nice. Even ants use scents to attract partners and communicate danger. But some perfumes are created to evoke places or emotions, some invite us to contemplate nature, and some challenge our idea of what perfumes should be. Indeed, some perfumes are best understood as works of art. This will be a journey into the hidden life of perfumes!

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• Based on: The Ants and the Butterfly

Is there a human right to internet access? To answer this question, we need to know why internet access has become an essential utility, what downsides the internet can have, and what protections such a novel human right might provide. After watching a short animated video, Dr Merten Reglitz will ask whether recognising a human right to internet access might help bridge the global digital divide.

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• Based on: The Tortoise and the Hare

Philosophers are interested in the notion of epistemic injustice. But what does that mean? When people are harmed in their capacity to share and produce knowledge, and are excluded from participation in debate and decision making due to some negative stereotype, nobody wins. After watching a short animated video, Kathleen Murphy-Hollies will lead a discussion on the importance of having a variety of perspectives heard.

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• Based on: The Fawn and the Mountain Lion

We disagree with each other on a host of moral, philosophical and religious matters. And our views often go to the heart of who we are. But in politics we need to make collective rules, and not everyone can have their way. What, then, does respectful political engagement look like, in a deeply pluralistic society like ours? Is it always acceptable to fight for our beliefs, and try to enact them, in the face of others’ opposition? Or might living together sometimes require putting those beliefs, and our most fundamental disagreements, aside? A workshop about the ethics of political dialogue, disagreement, and law-making.

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• Based on: The Owl's Parliament

In this all-day workshop (10am-4pm) with the participation of University of Birmingham philosophers Lisa Bortolotti, Merten Reglitz, Jeremy Williams, and Kathleen Murphy-Hollies, teachers and students from local secondary schools will familiarise themselves with interactive material addressing the issues of disagreement and inclusivity (animated videos and games). There will be time for small group work and whole group discussion. The topics are relevant to the curriculum for Ethics and Epistemology, and will raise questions concerning responsible citizenship and issues of justice.

Wednesday 10 January 2024, 12:30-13:30, ERI G51

Is Withholding Blame Dehumanising?

Nadine Elzein is Associate Professor in Philosophy at the University of Warwick, where she has been since 2021. She obtained her PhD at University College London and has previously held positions at King’s College London, the University of Southampton, and the University of Oxford.

Nadine is interested in a range of philosophical topics, ranging across ethics, metaphysics, and philosophy of mind. She has published papers addressing issues in free will, moral responsibility and moral psychology

Abstract

Philosophers working on moral responsibility and punishment often defend a view which seems puzzling to those outside of philosophy: The view that we would not be treating someone as a person if we did not blame them for their wrongdoings and view them as deserving punishment for their crimes. Given that systems of punishment themselves often look quite dehumanising (UK prisons are rife with mental health problems and suicide), why would we think that withholding punishment might be worse? One worry is that a society that didn’t punish wrongdoers would instead have to treat them like animals or machines to be retrained or reprogrammed; We could manipulate them into better behaviour or “treat” their behaviour as if it were an illness, but we would fail to treat them as rational adults who make their own choices. I want to challenge this picture and to say something about how we might keep personhood but reject punishment.

Monday 5 February 2024, 17:00-18:00, ERI G51

Can the Sea Eagle Make You Sick? On Mental Health and Culture

Dominic Murphy is Professor at the University of Sydney, Australia. His main areas of interest are in the philosophy of the cognitive and biological sciences, especially issues in psychiatry and cognitive neuroscience. He has further interests in evolutionary theory, the history and philosophy of biology and medicine, moral psychology, epistemology and bioethics.

Abstract

The Wellesley Islanders think that you can get sick by violating the food taboos of the totem animal of your clan. This is just one example of the many ways in which cultures make sense of physical and mental symptoms that we would think of as diseases or mental disorders.  In this talk I will survey some of the ways that culture seems to affect mental illness and ask whether it can be reconciled with the “medical model” that views neurodiversity as rooted in disorders of the brain. Many thinkers see mental illness as a cultural or social phenomena caused mostly by cultural forces, and argue that we should abandon the medical model as too reductive or anti-human. I will discuss the ways in which psychiatry has dealt with this challenge and argue that we can do justice to the importance and variety of cultural impacts on mental disorders without abandoning what is helpful in the medical model.

In collaboration with Ema Sullivan-Bissett and Anna Ichino’s project on Conspiratorial Ideation and Pathological Belief (British Academy funded) and with project EPIC (Epistemic Injustice in Healthcare, Wellcome Trust funded), TRIP at Birmingham invites you to a special screening at Midlands Arts Centre (MAC) on 18 March 2024, from 17:30 to 19:30, entitled “In the mind of a conspiracy theorist”.

The screening will be followed by a panel discussion by experts in conspiracy theories, delusional beliefs, misinformation, disagreement, and fake news. The audience will have the opportunity to actively participate with questions and comments.

• Admission free but registration required. 
• Programme suitable for secondary school and sixth-form college students.
• Email Lisa Bortolotti for more details.

Panel members

Wednesday 8 May 2024, 13:00-14:00, Webinar

The Philosophy of Travel and Mary Wollstonecraft

Emily Thomas is Professor of Philosophy at Durham University. Prior to this she obtained a BA from the University of Birmingham, a PhD from the University of Cambridge, and held a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Groningen. She has published widely on the history of metaphysics, especially space and time.

She is the author of the scholarly monograph Absolute Time: Rifts in Early Modern British Metaphysics (2018, Oxford University Press) and the trade book The Meaning of Travel: Philosophers Abroad (Oxford University Press, 2020). Thomas' work has been funded by the NWO, the AHRC, and the British Academy. In 2020 she won a Leverhulme Prize for excellence in research. Over the years, Thomas has appeared on many radio shows, including BBC’s In Our Time, and ABC’s Nightlife; and contributed popular philosophy pieces to venues such as Aeon, The Conversation, and the New Statesman.

Listen to the audio (with transcript) of the webinar

Abstract

Drawing on Emily Thomas’ book The Meaning of Travel, this talk explains what the philosophy of travel is. It goes on to explore philosophical issues in travel through the life and work Mary Wollstonecraft: an eighteenth-century philosopher and travel writer. Along the way we’ll look at Wollstonecraft’s travels around Scandinavia, the male history of travel, the history of feminism, and the nature of travel writing.