Forum for Philosophy

Alexander Douglas/ Peter Millican/ Kirsten Walsh   Listen to the podcast here or on YouTube   ‘Reason’ and ‘knowledge’, and the relationship between them, were major themes in Enlightenment philosophy, and drew the attention of some of the most respected philosophers of the time, including Decartes, Leibniz, and Spinoza, often referred to as the rationalists, … Continued

The post From the vaults: Reason first appeared on Forum for Philosophy.

Matthew Festenstein/ Clara Fischer/ Paniel Reyes Cardenas   Listen to the recording here or on YouTube   What if instead of worrying about truth as a fundamental, objective notion, we just focused on what works? What if we just believed in what is practical or beneficial to us to believe? Pragmatism is the great American … Continued

The post From the vaults: Pragmatism first appeared on Forum for Philosophy.

Danielle Sands/ Anatasia Scrutton/ Tom Stern   Listen to the recording here   The ‘most depressing lesson’ of suffering, Slavoj Žižek writes, is that ‘there is nothing to be learned from it’. Is Žižek’s bleak view convincing, or is there evidence to suggest that suffering can educate or even improve us? If so, do some types of physical … Continued

The post From the vaults: Can We Learn from Suffering? first appeared on Forum for Philosophy.

Victoria Dutchman-Smith/ Emmy Eklundh/ Matthew Ratcliffe   Listen to the recording here or on YouTube   At the intersection of the personal and the political, we explore the relationship between mental health and economics, politics, and society at large. Is it even possible to distinguish between mental illness that derives from an individual’s physiology or childhood experience and … Continued

The post From the vaults: The Politics of Mental Health first appeared on Forum for Philosophy.

Lisa Conlan/ Jean Khalfa/ Stella Sandford/ Alistair Stewart   Listen to the recording here or on YouTube   Mental disorders are widely held to have a chemical basis best treated with medication, and contemporary psychiatry is more closely allied with the neuro- and behavioural sciences than with philosophy. So what, if anything, does philosophy have … Continued

The post From the vaults: Philosophy and Psychiatry first appeared on Forum for Philosophy.