The Great Debate 10th Anniversary
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The Great Debate team are proud to announce our 10th year of organising courses, workshops
and public debates for a general audience. The programme for the year is still under
development
but as you can see on this page we already have an exciting line up of events planned
as part of our celebrations including
Progress of the Human Mind with Caspar Hewett and David Large,
Information-processing in Robotics, Biology and Philosophy
with Aaron Sloman,
Selfish Genes, Sex, and Sanity with Christopher Badcock,
and a whole day on
Darwinian Thought and Theories of
Human Nature.
Keep an eye on this site to see what else we have in store for you ...
Events for 2008
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The Complexity and Change Network in association with
The Great Debate and Newcastle Philosophy Society
present
Progress of the Human Mind: From Enlightenment to Postmodernism
9am – 4.30pm, Saturday, 27th September 2008
Room D112, Ellison Building
University of Northumbria at Newcastle
The thinkers of the Enlightenment celebrated a notion of progress
that embraced the methods of the Scientific Revolution and aspired
to improve the human condition through social advance combined with
scientific discovery. Yet by the beginning of the new millennium
the notion of progress had become associated primarily with technological
change and the worst excesses of its application in the course of the
twentieth century. What are the implications of this today and for the future?
This one day workshop will examine the changing nature of society’s
understanding of the meaning of ‘progress’ and how it relates to the
way that humanity is perceived today. Thinkers discussed will include
Condorcet, Kant, Saint-Simon, Auguste Comte and Michel Foucault.
Introduced by Caspar Hewett and
David Large. Open to all.
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BOOKING ESSENTIAL
£10 waged / FREE unwaged
(lunch and refreshments provided)
Bookings:
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Come along, hear the arguments and have your say
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Information-processing in Robotics, Biology and Philosophy:
Unnoticed Connections
7 – 8.30pm, Tuesday, 7th October 2008
Lecture Theatre: CCE1 002
Newcastle Business School
University of Northumbria at Newcastle
What can biologists, roboticists and philosophers learn from one another?
What can computer science tell us about what biological systems do and how they
do it? Is it possible to replicate or model those chemical information-processing
functions in digital electronic computing systems? What are the implications of
recent developments in computer science and software engineering in understanding
the nature of causality?
Aaron Sloman, author of Computer
Revolution in Philosophy: Philosophy, Science and Models of Mind delves
into the world of connections between ideas developed in computer science, biology
and philosophy, providing new insights into some fundamental questions about the
nature of consciousness and free will. Speaker:
Aaron Sloman,
University of Birmingham
Come along, hear the arguments and have your say
FREE but BOOKING ESSENTIAL
Contact:
Click here for full details
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Selfish Genes, Sex, and Sanity
7 – 8.30pm, Tuesday, 14th October 2008
University of Northumbria at Newcastle
An audience with
Christopher Badcock
Full details to follow
This event is FREE
but BOOKING IS ESSENTIAL
Contact:
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Agents of Change? Darwinian Thought and Theories of Human Nature
9am – 4pm, Saturday, 25th October 2008
Lecture Theatre: CCE1-003
(Break-out Rooms: CCE1-018, CCE1-022, CCE1-021)
University of Northumbria at Newcastle
Darwinism or Darwinitis?
Key note speech by Raymond Tallis
author The Hand: A Philosophical Enquiry into Human Being
The Great Human Nature Debate
Is there a universal human nature? If so, what do we all have in common? What makes us
different from animals? Do the defining factors even exist?
Speakers:
Rita Carter, author Mapping the Mind,
Conciousness
John Dupré,
author Human Nature and the Limits of Science
Thomas Pink,
author The Psychology of Freedom, Free Will: A Very Short Introduction
Prof. Sue Scott, University of Keele
What can science tell us about human nature?
Can we explain the mind and consciousness in terms of brain function?
Can we understand modern human behaviour in terms of our evolutionary heritage?
Is science the right place to start if we want to understand human nature?
Speakers:
Igor Aleksander,
author How to Build a Mind
Kenan Malik, author Man, Beast and Zombie
Daniel Nettle,
author Personality: What Makes You the Way You Are,
Happiness: The Science behind your Smile
Colin Talbot, author The Paradoxical Primate
Come along, hear the arguments and have your say
Click here for full details
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BOOKING ESSENTIAL
£10 waged / FREE unwaged
(lunch and refreshments provided)
Bookings:
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The Great Debate: Developing World Challenges
9am – 4pm, Saturday, 15 March 2008
Lindisfarne Room
King's Road Centre
Newcastle University
Location Map
Sponsored by
Economic and Social Research Council and Newcastle University
One day workshop organised by The Great Debate and
WORLDwrite.
Workshop focusing on two new documentaries made by Chew On It Productions:
I'm A Subsistence Farmer... Get Me Out Of Here! explores the
fact that whilst Westerners celebrate nature and complain about consumer
lifestyles, many in the developing world yearn for the comforts of modernity.
Keeping Africa Small examines Western NGO practices in Africa: However
well meaning they may be, NGO programmes often annoy everyone from fishermen to
shanty town inhabitants.
This challenging, exciting event examined the issues raised by the films and
provided an opportunity to learn about documentary making. In session 1 the crew
who made the documentaries shared tips on no to low budget broadcast quality
production, discussing how and why they made the films. Sessions 2 and 3 opened
with a showing of a half hour documentary followed by a debate. A panel including
one of the film makers discussed issues raised by the film and the audience
given plenty of opportunity to ask questions and make points from the floor.
Speakers
Ceri Dingle, Director of WORLDwrite
and Chew on it Productions
Viv Regan, Producer, WORLDwrite and
Chew on it Productions
Kim Tan, Campaigns Officer for
Oxfam UK
Barry K.Gills,
Professor of Global Politics, Newcastle University
John Gowing,
Reader in Agricultural Water Management, Newcastle University
Bill Colwell, Atlantic Pictures
Hilaire Agnama, Development Education Worker
Click Here for full details of event
Click here for edited video of
Keeping Africa Small debate
Click here for edited video of
I'm a Subsistence Farmer ... Get Me Out of Here! debate
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Authority, Respect and Human Potential in the 21st Century
7:00 – 8:30pm, Monday, 21st January 2008
Devonshire Building, Newcastle University
The Great Debate opened its 10th Anniversary celebration
with a discussion exploring the themes of authority and human
potential, examining how they are linked to the erosion of respect in
modern society.
What is meant by authority, respect and human potential today? Since the
Enlightenment the idea of the subject has had a central place in the way
that we think about ourselves. This understanding of what it is to be
human rests on the idea that we are active agents who do things for
reasons and shape the world to our own ends. Yet in recent years this
view of human nature has become deeply unpopular and we are encouraged
to think of ourselves as objects at the mercy of outside forces. At the
same time something else seems to be contributing to this historical
moment; something that has been left unexplored by many thinkers. This
is the erosion of respect for authority, reflected in modern cynicism
about politics and a deep distrust of experts. How closely connected are
these changes and how are we to understand them?
Introduced by Dr Caspar Hewett
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