Islam Conference 2009, 28th April: Shi'ism - Past and Present

On Tuesday 28th April 2009, the Department of Humanities at the University of Gloucestershire will host its annual Islam conference.

This year the topic is:

SHI’ISM:
PAST ANDPRESENT

The event will be held at:
TC001 - Tiered Lecture Theatre, FCH Campus, Swindon Road, Cheltenham.
Contact pdownes@glos.ac.uk for details: Full Programme to follow shortly - all welcome (including students!)..

You can book HERE

Four Noble Truths podcast

Those of you studying our Indian Religions module may wish to visit http://r-p-e.blogspot.com/2007/02/buddhism-podcast-2-four-noble-truths.html to download a podcasst of my reading the Mahasatipatthana Sutta, about the Four Noble Truths.

Hope this is useful - and that you enjoy the visit of today's meditation teacher...

d.

The Limits to Rights

What are rights? Can they only be ascribed to human beings or also to animals... the environment... inanimate objects?

Jonathon Wolff, Christopher Stone and Kenan Malik discuss these questions on the BBC Radio 4 'Law in Action' programme.

It is definitely worth listening to this articulate and stimulating discussion.

Seventh Seal (again)

Hi,
We will be looking at the film The Seventh Seal in class today.

Look at http://course1.winona.edu/pjohnson/h140/seal.htm for some ideas (see list of questions near base of the page) - and make comment via this blog post.

Other ideas are at http://r-p-e.blogspot.com/2008/02/seventh-seal.html

Prefer the Bill and Ted version? see
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=flcv_TnH7Mk

D.

Sense about Science?

Following RPE201 (Philosophy, Science and Belief)- many of us have been talking about related issues - - I thought this video might then be pertinent..
D.

Why Study Philosophy?

We have discussed this previously - see HERE and HERE to look at what we came up with - but I wanted to raise it with a new 'batch' of students - our current first year cohort.

I have pasted below the initial questions I have asked the RPE187 class - and await the answers with interest. [Other readers of the blog are welcome to join in!]
Cheers,
dave

So: why study philosophy

1 – Pragmatic:

What skills can you take from the subject? What else (if anything) will it make you good at?

2 – Social / Political:

Does a philosophical education make you a more aware citizen – who makes better choices?

Are you more moral as a result of the study of ethics?

Is a society with more philosophers in it, more or less likely to be:

• Fairer?
• Smooth functioning?
• Well organised?
• Argumentative and disputatious?
  

3 – Personal

Has your study so far impacted upon you as a person?

Is this a subject which changes people – unlike, perhaps, some other subjects (can you think of an example of a subject which doesn’t change people?)?

If it does bring about personal change – what is the nature of this change?

Other: Are there other reasons?

Philosophy Reading Group Update

The Philosophy Society is hotting up with enthusiastic responses to the reading (along with many other topics). Next month's reading is Machiavelli's The Prince. It promises to be an invigorating topic: cruelty, evil, politics, being misunderstood, Nietzsche's Ubermensch. Just the right tone to prepare us for February, the month of love. For more information the reading group blog can be found here:

http://readingphilosophy.wordpress.com/

We will meet Thursday, 5th February, 7pm, The Gallery Room (above the SU Bar at Park Campus). New-comers welcome!

If you have any questions please contact Shelley Campbell s0510427

RPE Research Seminar Series

We are pleased to announce the start of a series of research seminars in Religion, Philosophy & Ethics at the University of Gloucestershire, in Cheltenham.

Religion, Philosophy & Ethics: Research Seminar Series

Wednesday, 21st January 2009, 6pm - 7.30pm, HC204,
Francis Close Hall Campus

Are Buddhist Ethics Kantian?

Speaker: Justin Whitaker

University of Montana / Goldsmiths College

Free of Charge – All Welcome (but let me know that you are coming, if possible - dwebster@glos.ac.uk )

You can find out more about our speaker, Justin, at his blog: American Buddhist Perspective

Cheers,
Dave

Nigel M's new website

Some of you may be interested in a new website from our esteemed colleague, and poet, Dr Nigel McLouglhin.

Nigel is Reader in Creative Writing, and Course Leader for the University's MA in Creative & Critical Writing.

You can listen to him reading his work, and find out about readings, at www.nigelmcloughlin.co.uk

Kuhn, Anamolies, and those pesky Homeopaths

Those who enjoyed RPE201 (Philosophy, Science and Belief) may enjoy the piece at http://apgaylard.wordpress.com/2008/02/03/expect-the-unexpected/ which discusses how to make sense of the role of anomalous results / findings in the context of Kuhn's thought.

It also makes reference to the way that homeopathy has tended to mis-use scientific ideas (see badscience.net for some excellent material on this, and the role of evidence, risk and the like in science). If you want to understand more about evidence-based medicine and the problem with homeopathy - there is a fuller piece at http://www.badscience.net/2007/11/a-kind-of-magic/ which is well worth a read...


Dave

Update on The Philosophy Society

Hello,

There was a lively response to Paul Caddle's session on Paradoxes at the meeting last week. Thank you to Paul for bringing the idea and leading the discussion. The next meeting will be the second Thursday of January. The date is the 8th, in The Gallery Room above the SU Bar at Park Campus. We decided to read "Bartleby the Scrivener" by Herman Melville and "The Transcendentalist" by Emerson, the essay that inspired Melville to write Bartleby. There are text links and an audio link for the short story and the essay on the blog for the philosophy reading group that Emily set up last year:

http://readingphilosophy.wordpress.com/

We can use this blog for a discussion of our current reading or for any other comments you may have.

If you have any questions contact Shelley s0510427.

Britain's Worst Argument?

Following from some exercises I have done in classes, and after a chat with the RPE101 students I had a week or two ago – I have decided we could look for Britain’s Worst Argument.

This could be a formal fallacy of some sort - such as:

All philosophers are strange
Jeremy is strange
Therefore, Jeremy is a philosopher

As all students will recognise – this is an invalid piece of reasoning. The first statement only tells us that all philosophers are strange – not that all strange people are philosophers. Jeremy might be a strange plumber – a possibility left open by the first line (premise).

We may find more informal errors – such as people claiming that a point of view is correct because it is new, or indeed ‘ancient’ (as in ‘Ancient Wisdom), or popular.

Another popular approach is to suggest that someone is wrong due to their faults. My friend may be an ugly, smelly, and overbearing individual – but my telling him that does not mean that his argument about the matter at hand is wrong.

We might presume (often wrongly) that because one event precedes another – it causes the latter. E.g. I wore odd socks yesterday, then won at tennis: therefore my sock-wearing led to my victory - - this type of causal fallacy is often the basis for superstitions…

I would like to ask students – and other readers of this blog (anyone really) – to find us the worst pieces of reasoning they can find. International examples are welcome – but we will pick the winner from the British examples submitted…

Use the comment facility on this blog ( www.r-p-e.blogspot.com ) to submit them – or email them to me at dwebster@glos.ac.uk (say if you’re happy for me to post the argument on the blog when you email it).

We may even find a prize under some of the piles of books in my office…

We will post a blog story reporting on out findings (and the winner) in the New Year…

Happy hunting

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

Need some help / examples?

See http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/

http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html

Philosophy Society Update and Paradoxes

The next meeting will be 4th December, 7pm, in the Gallery Room above the SU Bar at Park Campus. Please come because the Poker Society covets our first Thursday of the month time slot for the Gallery Room. They have the room every Thursday but the first Thursday of the month and would happily take over our slot - their attendance strength surprisingly surpasses ours. If you are interested in becoming a member of the Philosophy Society please pay the membership fee and come to the next meeting!

We know that assignment deadlines are flooding in at this time of year so we decided not to burden semester schedules with extra homework. So for the next meeting there is no preliminary reading. Paul Caddle is going to present Paradoxes for discussion. There is no preparation needed because Paul believes that encountering these paradoxes without any particular agenda will enliven the debate.

Look forward to seeing all of you on December 4th. Don't hesitate to contact me with any questions,

Shelley

Are we 'demonising' children?

We see the launch today a campaign by children's charity Barnados.

The BBC report is at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7732796.stm - and the full video at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7730219.stm - also see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7732203.stm for an analysis of the debate.




Is it too easy to blame children for the rise in crime, the fear of crime and social disorder that many assert is around us?

29% of teachers say Intelligent Design should be taught in science lessons

As indicated by this article in the Guardian, this debate seems to have transversed the Atlantic and is gaining momentum in British society.

Whether evolutionary theory is the only legitimate scientific explanation for the existence of life begs the question, 'What is science?' For, if science classes in schools covers that which falls under the remit of science, then creationism and intelligent design must first fulfil the criteria to be a considered science. Otherwise, their place is within religious studies or the general humanities.

Advocates of intelligence design might argue that the problem lies with our education system that delineates so severely between different subjects as if they were self contained entities. The very fact that we place such emphasis on science as a subject that tells us how the world 'really is' assumes that there is something particularly special about its methods and results. Religious studies in contrast, is usually reduced to a minor (and 'easy') subject.

This debate highlights limitations with our education system and the gravitas we give to particular subjects without studying the foundational assumptions upon which they rest. Where, in the national curriculum, is there any real discussion about what is science, and whether scientific methods are better than any other ways of understanding the world? This seems fundamental to the whole argument.

I have no truck with those that believe in intelligent design nor creationism but I do sympathise with their efforts to question the whole system of science education in schools. I would not advocate that either theory gets taught as part of the science curriculum, for they are not sciences, but I do think there should be a place for students to discuss the underpinning assumptions about science.