The Birkbeck Philosophy Society is holding their annual Summer Party which is being held in Room 101, 30 Russell Square (Please ask for directions at the Main Reception at Malet St if you are unaware of its location) on Friday 15th June 2007.

Admission for Society members and School of Philosophy
staff is free. For non-members, an admission fee of £5
will be charged at the door.

Friday 15th June 2007

The 2007 AGM of the Birkbeck Philosophy Society will take place in Room 407 of the Malet Street main building on Friday 15th June from 6.00 to 6.30 p.m. (immediately before the staff/student exchange meeting).

The agenda is as follows:

Report from the Treasurer

Report from the President

Election of new committee for the year 2007/08

All members of the Society are encouraged to come to this meeting. All members are entitled to stand for, or propose a candidate for, any committee position. Please come and register your vote.

Wednesday 8th May 2007

Birkbeck Philosophy Society would like to introduce the second speaker for Summer Term 2007.

Simon Blackburn, Professor of Philosophy, University of Cambridge, will be presenting the talk, entitled:

‘Minimalism, Pragmatism, Postmodernism’

The talk is being held on Wednesday 9th May 2007 at 8:30pm, in Room B04, Malet Street.

Former Editor of Mind, Professor Blackburn’s numerous publications include Reason and Prediction (1973), Essays in Quasi-Realism (1993), and The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy (1994) to name but a few.

Admission for Society members and School of Philosophy staff is free. For non-members, an admission fee of £3 will be charged at the door.

Tuesday 20th March 2007

Birkbeck Philosophy Society would like to introduce the final speaker for Spring Term 2007.

Julian Baggini, editor and co-founder of The Philosophers' Magazine, will be
presenting the talk, entitled:

'The Thin Ice of Reason: A Sceptical Defence of Rationality'

The presentation is being held in Room 405, Malet Street at 8:30pm on Tuesday 20th March 2007.

Dr Baggini will present the outline of a sceptical defence of reason, in the tradition of David Hume. Hume was unusual in that he saw as clearly as any postmodernist just how wobbly the foundations of reason are, yet he sought to defend reason against irrationality and superstition. Dr Baggini fears we have fallen off the tightrope Hume was walking. Defenders of Enlightenment values are unwilling to confront head on just how thin reason is. Dr Baggini will hope to persuade you (rather than provide incontrovertible arguments based on indubitable premises) that reason is the worst method of arriving at truth except for all those others that have been tried.

Philosopher and writer, Dr Baggini has written for The Guardian, The Observer, The Independent, and the BBC. Baggini has also been a regular guest on BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time.

Admission for Society members and School of Philosophy staff is free. For non-members, an admission fee of £3 will be charged. However, all non-members are invited to join the society and benefit from free admission to all society events for the remainder of the academic year.

Tuesday 13th March

Birkbeck Philosophy Society would like to introduce the next speaker for Spring Term 2007.

Pamela Anderson, Faculty of Theology, Regents Park College, University of Oxford, will be presenting the talk, entitled:

'Feminism/ Emotion in Ethics'

The presentation is being held at 8:30pm on Tuesday 13th March 2007.

Unfortunately the room has yet to be confirmed. However, details will be available at the reception, on the ground floor of the Main Building, Malet Street on the evening of the talk.

Dr Pamela Anderson's research interests include:

Philosophy of Religion: including continental philosophy and feminist philosophy of religion; Kant; Ricoeur and Le Doeuff; Ethics and moral psychology.

Admission for Society members and School of Philosophy staff is free. For non-members, an admission fee of £3 will be charged. However, all non-members are invited to join the society and benefit from free admission to all society events for the remainder of the academic year.

Tuesday 27th February 2007

Birkbeck Philosophy Society would like to introduce the next speaker for Spring Term 2007.

Laurence Hemming, Dean of Research, Heythrop College, University of London, will be presenting the talk, entitled:

'A Question Of Right Or Wrong: Which Is It To Be? '

The presentation is being held at 8.30pm on Tuesday 27 February 2007.

Unfortunately the room has yet to be confirmed. However, details will be available at the reception, on the ground floor of the Main Building, Malet Street on the evening of the talk.

Dr Hemming's precis is as follows: "It is often claimed that any philosophical claim or set of claims rests ultimately on matters of belief or faith. This paper will examine that claim, with a view to addressing the question of 'ground' or 'foundation' as such. This question has become especially important in claims about moral or ethical thinking, but actually relates to the question of the foundation or ground of truth. I will attempt to show what a philosophical enquiry into ground is, as such, without reference to matters believed or held on faith."

Laurence Hemming, MA and M.Phil (University of Oxford); PhD (University of Cambridge) joined Heythrop College as a Research Fellow in 1998 and became a full member of the Faculty in 1999. His principal responsibilities are for the College's research degrees and the oversight of the College's research strategy. His main interest has been in the relation between philosophy and theology.

Dr Hemming has written extensively on the work of Martin Heidegger, as well as St. Thomas Aquinas, Descartes, Kant, Hegel and Nietzsche. He has published two research monographs: Heidegger's Atheism: The Refusal of a Theological Voice (Notre Dame University Press, Notre Dame, 2002) and Postmodernity's Transcending: Devaluing God (Notre Dame University Press, Notre Dame and SCM Press, London, 2005). He has also published a short introduction to the life and thought of Pope Benedict XVI, called Benedict XVI: Fellow Labourer for the truth – An Introduction to His Life and Thought (Burnes & Oates, London, 2005).

Admission for Society members and School of Philosophy staff is free. For non-members, an admission fee of £3 will be charged. However, all non-members are invited to join the society and benefit from free admission to all society events for the remainder of the academic year.

Birkbeck Philosophy Society would like to invite you to the first talk for this half of Spring Term 2007.

Derek Matravers, Affiliated Lecturer, Cambridge University and Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, the Open University, will be presenting the talk, entitled:

'About Ethics and Sexual Desire'

The presentation is being held at 8.30pm on Tuesday 20 February 2007. Unfortunately we have yet to receive confirmation of the room in which the talk will be held. If this page is not updated, the relevant information will be available at the reception on the ground floor of the Main Building in Malet Street. We would like to apologise for this oversight.

Dr Matravers will be discussing what topics fall within, and what without, ethics. In particular, he will ask about unconscious motivations and about sexual attractions. Ought one to be concerned, from a moral point of view, about the characteristics one finds sexually attractive? Obviously, this depends on the characteristics. But what principles divide those about which we ought to be worried, from those about which we need not be concerned? What is the basis for the worries if we have them? What, if anything, can moral theory add to the debate?

Derek Matravers studied for his PhD at Cambridge, and was a research fellow at Darwin College from 1991-1994. In addition to being an Affiliated Lecturer at the Faculty of Philosophy, he is a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the Open University. As well as philosophy, his interests include the arts, the theatre, and motorbikes.

His research interests are in aesthetics, ethics, and political philosophy. Recent publications include:

* Art and EmotionM (OUP, 1998)

* 'Fiction and the Problem of Imaginative Resistance'; in Dominic Lopes and Matthew Kieran, eds., Imagination and the Arts; pp. 91-106; (Routledge, 2003).

* 'The Experience of Expression in Music', The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism (forthcoming).

* 'The Aesthetic Experience' The British Journal of Aesthetics, 43 (3), January 2003, 158-74.

* 'The Institutional Theory of Art: A Protean Creature', The British Journal of Aesthetics, 40 (2), (April 2000), 242-50.

* 'Justice and Moral Theory', Skepsis, X, 1999, 71-82.

Admission for Society members and School of Philosophy staff is free. For non-members, an admission fee of £3 will be charged. However, all non-members are invited to join the society and benefit from free admission to all society events for the remainder of the academic year.

Birkbeck Philosophy Society would like to invite you to a specially organised reading week talk for Spring Term 2007.

Bill Pollard, educated at York, Cambridge and Durham, will be presenting a talk entitled:

'How to reason practically without thinking about it'

The presentation is being held in Room 405, Malet Street at 8:30pm on Tuesday 13 February 2007.

As Bill is making the trip specially, we’d like to provide him with a suitable and engaged audience. So, if you can arrange to be with us, we’d be delighted to see you.

Admission for Society members and School of Philosophy staff is free. For non-members, an admission fee of £3 will be charged. However, all non-members are invited to join the society and benefit from free admission to all society events for the remainder of the academic year.

Birkbeck Philosophy Society would like to invite you to the final talk for this half of Spring Term 2007.

Stuart Brown, from Cambridge University, will be presenting the lecture, entitled:

'Leibniz & Berkeley: Allies or Foes?'

The presentation is being held in Room 101, 30 Russell Square at 8.30pm on Tuesday 6 February 2007.

The subject matter for the talk will cover early modern European philosophy and the sympathies and contrasts of Gottfried Leibniz's rationalist position and the high idealism of George Berkeley.

Admission for Society members and School of Philosophy staff is free. For non-members, an admission fee of £3 will be charged. However, all non-members are invited to join the society and benefit from free admission to all society events for the remainder of the academic year.

Tuesday 30th January 2007

Birkbeck Philosophy Society would like to invite you to the third lecture of Spring Term 2007.

Russell Stannard OBE, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Open University, will be presenting the lecture, entitled:

'Modern Cosmology: Room For God?'

The lecture is being held in Room 102, 30 Russell Square at 8.30pm on Tuesday 30 January 2007.

The subject matter of the talk covers philosophy of science and philosophy of religion. Russell Stannard has spent most of his professional career carrying out research in the field of high energy nuclear physics. This is the study of the ultimate structure of matter and the properties of space and time. It has involved working with atom-smashing machines in Berkeley, California, and Geneva, Switzerland. He now concentrates on lecturing, writing and broadcasting.

Admission for Society members and School of Philosophy staff is free. For non-members, an admission fee of £3 will be charged. However, all non-members are invited to join the society and benefit from free admission to all society events for the remainder of the academic year.

Tuesday 22nd January 2007

Birkbeck Philosophy Society would like to invite you to the second lecture of Spring Term 2007.

Sam Coleman, from Birkbeck College, University of London, will be presenting the lecture, entitled:

'Pieces of Mind: Why Conscious Atoms Are a Good Bet'

The lecture is being held in Room 405, on the fourth floor of the Main Building, Malet Street at 8.30pm on Tuesday 23 January 2007.

The subject matter of the talk is within philosophy of mind, with reference to the puzzle of consciousness for physicalism, or: how to fit consciousness into thephysical world. Dr Coleman, who is a Honorary Research Fellow at Birkbeck, will be describing a panpsychist view, on which matter's basic constituents are conscious, and spending time arguing that it is a sensible competitor theory at least. Additionally, the theory has the potential to sort out a lot of problems that bother us: inter alia, the explanatory gap, the causal power of the mental and the 'mysterious' essence of the physical.

Admission for Society members and School of Philosophy staff is free. For non-members, an admission fee of £3 will be charged. However, all non-members are invited to join the society and benefit from free admission to all society events for the remainder of the academic year.

Wednesday 10th

January 2007

Birkbeck Philosophy Society wishes you a Happy New
Year and would like to invite you to the first lecture
of Spring Term 2007.

Craig Bourne, from Cambridge University, will be presenting the lecture, entitled:

'All the Time in the Worlds: Gödel's Modal Moral'

The lecture is being held in the Council Room, on the
Ground Floor of the Main Building, Malet Street at
8.30pm on Wednesday 10 January 2007.

Admission for Society members and School of Philosophy
staff is free. For non-members, an admission fee of £3
will be charged. However, all non-members are invited
to join the society and benefit from free admission to
all society events for the remainder of the academic
year.

The Birkbeck Philosophy Society is holding their annual Christmas Party which is being held in the Council Room on the Ground Floor of the
Main Building, Malet Street (Please ask for directions at the Main Reception if you are unaware of its location) at 8.30pm on Friday 15
December 2006.

After a typically strenuous Autumn term it will be fun
to finish the final day with some light refreshments
and a chewing of the philosophical cud!

Unfortunately non-members will have to pay £5
admission. However, by merely doubling that amount,
they can join the society and benefit from free
admission to all society events for the remainder of
the academic year.

For society Members and School of Philosophy staff
admission is, of course, free.