As we ease into a new educational year, questions linger about how we should approach education in general and Higher Education in particular. Some universities are voicing concerns that they can’t make ends meet and the recent pressure to reduce foreign students is only adding to the financial challenges they face.

The Blair government set the objective for the UK to have at least 50% of its people attend university and obtain a degree, but the question remains on whether this political objective still holds true. Should education be a right for all? And at what level should the cost be transferred from the state to the individual? If you don’t enter Higher Education, why should you pay for those that do?

This Lit & Phil Philosophy Forum will investigate the current problems faced by all those involved with Higher Education, leading into philosophical discussions around topics such as how does the UK benefit from Higher Education; who should it be aimed at; is education a Human Right; and what are the general benefits of education in the first place?

The session will be presented by Manchester Lit and Phil member Richard Remelie, who wrote the focus paper. We will give everyone an opportunity to discuss their views.

Good to know: We take pride in putting the fun back into serious philosophy through our friendly and respectful discussions involving different levels of experience of philosophy.  The Lit & Phil Philosophy Forum is all about collectively exploring interesting and exciting ideas from different viewpoints … not winning arguments!

 The focus paper for reading in advance of the session, can be downloaded here.

 We are usually oversubscribed, so if you book but find out later that you cannot attend, please cancel your ticket to free up a place for someone else. Thank you.

In November 2022, OpenAI made the now famous ChatGPT tool available for public use and the company has since enjoyed a swift and pervasive rise in popularity.

The use of this tool and others like it is unnervingly ubiquitous. ChatGPT’s extremely helpful tendrils have been welcomed with open arms, into all areas of life – whether we are active users or unknowing consumers of its generated content. ChatGPT can claim authorship of everything from glowing end-of-year school reports to disgruntled letters of resignation. And now it can add a Manchester Lit & Phil Philosophy Forum Focus Paper to that list (!).

The paper contains a discussion with ChatGPT in which the tool is used to explain ChatGPT itself, its pitfalls, strengths and the philosophical questions surrounding it (please see download link below). We’ll be using this to guide our conversations in the session, which will be presented by Manchester Lit and Phil member Robert Mears.

Good to know: We take pride in putting the fun back into serious philosophy through our friendly and respectful discussions involving different levels of experience of philosophy.  The Lit & Phil Philosophy Forum is all about collectively exploring interesting and exciting ideas from different viewpoints … not winning arguments!

The focus paper for reading in advance of the session, can be downloaded here.

We are usually oversubscribed, so if you book but find out later that you cannot attend, please cancel your ticket to free up a place for someone else. Thank you.

Individuals should enjoy the liberty to pursue their own preferences.

This has been a generally accepted principle of western democracy for several years, but where should the line be drawn between what an individual has the right to do and how much the state should intervene to limit an individual’s actions?

In a famous essay first published in 1958, Isaiah Berlin identified two concepts of liberty:  negative and positive. Berlin gave us two contrasting ways of thinking of liberty that built upon approaches identified by previous philosophers and is still the subject of much discussion today.

This Manchester Lit & Phil Philosophy Forum focuses on Berlin’s approach as outlined in the Focus Paper (see link below). Together we will compare Berlin’s proposals with thoughts on Liberty from two famous Philosophers: Rousseau and John Stuart Mill. We will give everyone an opportunity to discuss their views.

The session will be presented by Manchester Lit and Phil member Andrew Bailey.

Good to know: We take pride in putting the fun back into serious philosophy through our friendly and respectful discussions involving different levels of experience of philosophy.  The Lit & Phil Philosophy Forum is all about collectively exploring interesting and exciting ideas from different viewpoints … not winning arguments!

The focus paper for reading in advance of the session, can be viewed and downloaded here.

We are usually oversubscribed, so if you book but find out later that you cannot attend, please cancel your ticket to free up a place for someone else. Thank you.

Truth is a hot topic because it has never been as threatened as it is now.

We are living in the deeply unsettling floating world of the information revolution.  Like all major cultural upheavals, it brings wonders and benefits, but it also brings danger.  The tools and opportunities for disinformation are everywhere to see.  Ideas such as ‘post-truth’, ‘deep fake’ and ‘alternative facts’ point to the perils of mass dissemblance.

So now is the perfect time to consider what we actually mean by truth … such an innocent and simple concept … until, that is, you try to grasp it!  It is then we become aware just how slippery truth is.

The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? You’d better believe it!  Are you kidding?  Welcome to the branch of philosophy called epistemology.

The seminar will be presented by John Pickersgill

Good to know: We take pride in putting the fun back into serious philosophy through our friendly and respectful discussions involving different levels of experience of philosophy.  The Lit & Phil Philosophy Forum is all about collectively exploring interesting and exciting ideas from different viewpoints … not winning arguments!

The focus paper for reading in advance of the session, can be downloaded here.

We are usually oversubscribed, so if you book but find out later that you cannot attend, please cancel your ticket to free up a place for someone else. Thank you.

Ancient humans seemed to see themselves as deeply embedded in nature and this was reflected later in widespread Paganism.  But humanity subsequently lost its humility.  In their human origin myths, monotheistic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) granted a divine spark to our lowly formation from dust, supposedly giving us ‘dominion’ over the rest of creation.

Our exalted status carried over into the early Renaissance. But the growth of modern science, especially medicine, while reinforcing that control over nature, also demanded a much more down-to-Earth physical view of ourselves.  Darwin’s demonstration of our true genealogical origins decidedly pulled us off our spiritual pedestal.

Professor Çiğdem Balim takes us through this historical arc of human hubris from Earth via Heaven and back down to Earth again.  How do we see ourselves today?  Are we just animals crawling over the Earth?  Or are we still special in some way?

Good to know: We take pride in putting the fun back into serious philosophy through our friendly and respectful discussions involving different levels of experience of philosophy.  The Lit & Phil Philosophy Forum is all about collectively exploring interesting and exciting ideas from different viewpoints … not winning arguments!

The focus paper, written by Çiğdem and for reading in advance of the session, can be downloaded here.

We are usually oversubscribed, so if you book but find out later that you cannot attend, please cancel your ticket to free up a place for someone else. Thank you.

In the prestigious 1000-page Oxford Companion to Philosophy, of all the pantheon of the greats listed in its chronological table of philosophy, the number who are female is … one!  Is this because women just can’t do philosophy as well as men?  Or is it the normal misogyny of cultural historiography, of which the history of Philosophy is alas no exception?

Sue Johnson aims to correct that gross imbalance in this March session of the Lit & Phil’s Philosophy Forum.

As a philosophy student in the 1960s, Sue despaired of the sole focus on the unworldly, arguably fussy linguistic analysis which so dominated philosophy in the Anglophone world of the 20^th century.  But later she discovered Phenomenology, that wonderful philosophical tradition about ‘being in the world’ with all its messy contradictions.

That revelation subsequently enriched all her work in education research, prison reform, therapy and latterly in her intriguing book, The Prison Psychiatrist’s Wife, imbued as it is by deep philosophical questions rooted in the nature of experience.

Good to know: We take pride in putting the fun back into serious philosophy through our friendly and respectful discussions involving different levels of experience of philosophy.  The Lit & Phil Philosophy Forum is all about collectively exploring interesting and exciting ideas from different viewpoints … not winning arguments!

The focus paper written by Sue and for reading in advance of the session, can be downloaded here.

We are usually oversubscribed, so if you book but find out later that you cannot attend, please cancel your ticket to free up a place for someone else. Thank you.

We like to think of the Enlightenment as a glorious period where ideas were driven by rationality and evidence.  But, of course, it’s not as easy as that.

The history of human ideas is blemished with personal and cultural beliefs we find repulsive today.  Immanuel Kant, arguably the greatest 18^th century European philosopher and source of so many ideas in modern philosophy, neuroscience and psychology, was sadly no exception.

In this January session of the Lit & Phil’s Philosophy Forum, Dr Keekok Lee – philosopher, author and Honorary Research Professor/Fellow at the University of Manchester – will guide us through the ethical minefield of how we can maturely face up to the past by looking at Kant’s racism.

You don’t need any prior knowledge of Kant’s work. The theme of this Forum is about how we deal with uncomfortable facts about our cultural past.

So, can we judge Kant and his work by present day standards?  Or can we separate the wheat from the chaff, ignoring the awkward bits?  Or must we reject all of it?

The Western world morally struggles with aspects of its history and the controversial legacy of it today.  It needs much discussion!  Here is your opportunity to take part in that.

Good to know: We take pride in putting the fun back into serious philosophy through our friendly and respectful discussions involving different levels of experience of philosophy.  The Lit & Phil Philosophy Forum is all about collectively exploring interesting and exciting ideas from different viewpoints … not winning arguments!

The focus paper by Keekok (available here) should be read before the Forum to enrich and guide our discussions. You’ll get a lot more out of attending if you read the paper beforehand. Also, for this session, there is a subsidiary focus paper containing summaries and questions for our discussions. This second paper can be used as a short introduction for pre-reading, and/or a summary for post-reading.

We are usually oversubscribed, so if you book but find out later that you cannot attend, please cancel your ticket to free up a place for someone else. Thank you.