Monday 8th August - 06:00 PM BST
Headline Debate - The New 10 Commandments
Can life be reduced to a rulebook?
From the 10 Commandments to the Buddhist eight-fold path, we have traditionally looked to religion to provide ideals and the rules and values to live by. Today the rules and codes of life are as, or perhaps more, likely to be found in social media convention or self-help books like Jordan Peterson's 'The 12 Rules for Life'. But critics argue all such codes are destined to fail and it is a mistake to try to define ideals and provide rules for living.
Should we see attempts to promote rules for life not as an ultimate ideal morality but a framework designed to uphold a given social order and set of institutions? Are all codes for living a simplistic frame that hides the deep puzzle of what it is to be alive? Or are ideals not only essential to give us something to believe in and provide a road map for living but also for the well being of society as a whole?
Simon Baron-Cohen is is a pioneering psychologist whose work on autism has revolutionised the field of developmental psychopathology. As part of his empathizing-systemizing theory, Simon famously claimed that autism is an extreme of the male brain.
Sophie-Grace Chappell is a Professor of Philosophy at the Open University, who writes about ethics, politics, feminism and epistemology. Her books include Ethics Beyond the Limits, Knowing What To Do, and Ethics and Experience.
Massimo Pigliucci is, and always has been, a vehement critic of creationism and pseudoscience and a central advocate for secularism and science in education. His most recent works include a FieldGuide to a Happy Life and How to be a Stoic, whilst his Ted Talks on stoicism have garnered millions of views
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5.00pm
Documentary Screening - DOKBOX Cinema
The Mindful Revolution
5.15pm
Big Sofa Interview - The Lounge
The Exodus of Empathy
6.00pm
Headline Debate - The Arena
The New 10 Commandments
7.00pm
Meet The Speakers - The Lounge
7.00pm
Documentary Screening - DOKBOX Cinema
The First World
7.20pm
Talk - The Arena
The Pleasure of Suffering
7.30pm
Music - The Stage
Annie Dressner
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Simon Baron-Cohen
Simon Baron-Cohen is a pioneering psychologist whose work on autism has revolutionised the field of developmental psychopathology. As part of his empathizing-systemizing theory, Simon famously claimed that autism is an extreme of the male brain.
Sophie Grace Chappell
Sophie-Grace Chappell is a Professor of Philosophy at the Open University, who writes about ethics, politics, feminism and epistemology. Her books include Ethics Beyond the Limits, Knowing What To Do, and Ethics and Experience. Her most recent book is the edited collection Intuition, Theory, and Anti-Theory in Ethics, published in 2015. She also writes poetry, and is the UK's first openly transgender academic philosopher; an experience she has written about for Aeon and The Lovepost.
Myriam François
Author, broadcaster, podcast host
"Creating a sense of co-existence and community is about forging a shared identity which all members of society can identify with and I think this will necessarily begin with quite a profound reform of education."
Dr Myriam François is a trailblazing journalist, filmmaker and writer currently working at Al-Jazeera. Myriam’s writing is featured widely in the British press, including the Guardian, TIME, Foreign Policy, the Telegraph, CNN online and Middle East Eye, among others. In 2019, Myriam started the We Need to Talk About Whiteness Podcast to pioneer conversations around structural whiteness in the UK.
Massimo Pigliucci
“If a theory purports to explain everything, then it is likely not explaining much at all.”
Massimo Pigliucci is an author, blogger, podcaster and philosophy professor at the City College of New York and former co-host of the Rationally Speaking Podcast. His research interests include the Philosophy of Science and the Philosophy of Biology.
Pigliucci is, and always has been, a vehement critic of creationism and pseudoscience and a central advocate for secularism and science in education. His most recent works include a FieldGuide to a Happy Life and How to be a Stoic. He has contributed to numerous TedTalks and his lectures are widely available on youtube.
He is the author of several books including How to be a Stoic: Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life (2017) and Philosophy of Pseudoscience: Reconsidering the Demarcation Problem (2013).
'Massimo Piggliuci is uniquely gifted at translating philosphy into terms helpful for alleviating and elevating the lives of many' - Rebecca Newberger Goldstein