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
Myriam Francois is an author, broadcaster and academic on issues related to Islam, France and the Middle East. She is host of the increasingly popular We Need to Talk about Whiteness Podcast.
Massimo Pigliucci
Massimo Pigliucci is an author, blogger, podcaster and Professor of Philosophhy at the City College of New York. He is the former co-host of the Rationally Speaking podcast and formed editor-in-chief for the online magazine Scientia Salon. Throughout his philosophical career, Pigliucci has been a critic of pseudoscience and creationism. He argues for secularism and also draws on Stoic philosophy when suggesting ways of living today.
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).
