podcasts

lectures

Learning

The ASH (Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities) talks offers an opportunity to test out ideas and arguments before an audience which is smart and interested, but has no specialist knowledge of the topic.

Clare Hall - ASH Colloquium

Lectures

moral talks

thinking times

Ethics

1 November 2011, Conference Centre, British Library

Why do we have such contradictory views of young people? Fear and mistrust one minute; recognition and celebration the next. Are our perceptions of young people distorted? And what impact do our perceptions of young people and youth culture have on policy decisions? 

The speakers were Professor Ken Roberts, AcSS, Department of Sociology, Social Policy and Criminology, University of Liverpool and Dr Mary Jane Kehily, Senior Lecturer in Childhood and Youth Studies at The Open University. The discussion was chaired by  Ross Hendry, Director of Policy, Office of the Children's Commissioner, England.




Myths and Realities 11: Young people - troubled, troublesome or terrific?

In this talk from BSA Realism event on September 6th Dave Elder-Vass (Loughborough)  talks about Realism, ANT and the Post-Human

Dave Elder-Vass on Actor Network Theory

Panel discussion with

Jane Ellison (Commissioning Editor, Radio 4, BBC),

Matthew Cock (Head of Web, British Museum),

Bill Thompson (Technology writer and Head of Partnership Development, BBC Archive Development) 

History on the Internet

Professor Stephen Hawking offers his own perspective on theories about the origin of the Universe, with a talk entitled "Fire in the Equations".

Stephen Hawking: COSMO Public Symposium 2013

Professor Ian Roberts will explore how languages shape human culture and human thought. Some languages have shaped our world more than others and some of them are not as obvious as you might think. This talk offers a sample of those languages, from Sanskrit to Singlish, via French and Esperanto, with one or two real surprises along the way.

Ideas and languages: 10 languages that changed the world

What if we understand death as a developmental stage — like adolescence or mid-life? Dr. Ira Byock says we lose sight of "the remarkable value" of the time of life we call dying if we forget that it's always a personal and human event, and not just a medical one. From his place on this medical frontier, he shares how we can understand dying as a time of learning, repair, and completion of our lives.

www.onbeing.org/program/contempla…ortality/11072013

Ira Byock — Contemplating Mortality (Nov 7, 2013)

A talk given by Judith Jarvis Thomson (MIT) at the Moral Sciences Club.

Rights and Wrongs

Michael Loewe relates his personal experience of work at Bletchley Park during WW2. The high-level intelligence produced at Bletchley Park, codenamed Ultra, provided crucial assistance to the Allied war effort. Sir Harry Hinsley, a Bletchley veteran and the official historian of British Intelligence during the Second World War, believed that Ultra shortened the war by two to four years and that the outcome of the war would have been uncertain without it. 

Michael Loewe was recruited as a code breaker while still an undergraduate at Oxford.  He writes:

‘We were a mixed bag: highly distinguished scholars and mathematicians; senior officers of the armed services; eccentrics; wise men and fools; veterans, long experienced in ‘the game’; or, as some of us, undergraduates torn away from the dreaming spires of Oxford or the fens of East Anglia.

Codes and ciphers varied in their complexity.  There were the simple systems used solely to deny information to lower ranks in the German, Italian or Japanese forces.  There were the highly refined versions of the commercially available ‘Enigma’ machine and its successors, used by commanders in the field, captains of submarines or naval attachés. 

In some cases, once the key to reading a message was found or broken, it could be read in its entirety; but for some systems the work was never complete and did not allow more than a partial reading, perhaps with the key word (the name of a place or a ship) undecipherable.

Codes and ciphers were broken by exploiting basic information, such as the behaviour of units of a language or predicting parts of the content of a message.  Those struggling with their wits at the Park blessed the well worn habits, the careless errors or the laziness of the cipher clerks!  But a basic characteristic of the Enigma machine itself provided the way in.

Occasionally the British services themselves helped, e.g. by a specially planned military operation designed to capture documents, or by laying a minefield at sea to provide a reaction by signal.’

Bletchley Park Code Breaker 1942-45

Michael Loewe, is a University of Cambridge academic and renowned sinologist who has authored dozens of books, articles, and other publications in the fields of Classical Chinese and ancient Chinese history.

In this remarkable talk, he describes the twenty-five Chinese dynastic histories that range from 221 BCE to 1911, a continuous account without parallel anywhere and anytime, and he ponders over what these unique records do tell us about the Chinese sense of history.

China’s historical writings are voluminous, including the basic series of twenty-five dynastic histories that range from 221 BCE to 1911.  Officially sponsored, these works set out to prove the legitimacy of  rule that each house enjoyed, coupled with emphasis on the evil ways that brought its predecessor to ruin.

The compilers sought to set human activities within the inescapable cycles that govern the universe, writing with an air of superiority and and an isolationism that called for a single and harmonious rule of all mankind.  Such was what may be seen as the Chinese version of a Whig interpretation of history, flawed by pride and bias and giving rise to misconception.

Officials called on incidents of the past to explain the activities of the present. Exceptionally some Chinese scholar-historians adopted a highly critical stance, breaking away from traditional standpoints and periodisation.  China’s leading universities to-day accept the need for a critical approach and, despite sensitivity over some matters, they invite westerners to deliver lectures on China’s history to their students.  Splendid newly built museums, crowded by parties of school children, and carefully maintained archaeological sites testify to the serious presentation of China’s past to its inheritors of to-day.

China’s sense of history past and present

The question of how language is acquired has fascinated scholars of linguistics and philosophy since ancient times. In this talk, I discuss the status of language universals and gaps in relation to this debate.

The question of how language is acquired has fascinated scholars of linguistics and philosophy since ancient times. Chomsky's work on this topic in the mid 20th century sparked a cognitive revolution after which the focus shifted from behaviourist approaches towards mental models positing a richly specified Universal Grammar (UG).

More recently, though, different kinds of objections have been raised to the concept of UG, notably the issue of how such a system could evolve.

In this talk, I discuss the status of language universals and gaps in relation to this debate. We shall see that many things which we might expect to find in human languages simply never occur. These gaps, we shall see, provide quite strong support for some kind of cognitive bias in language acquisition, particularly when evidence from artificial language acquisition studies is considered.

Michelle L. Sheehan is a Research Associate, Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics.

Nature or nurture: how much of language is innate?

An ethicist and palliative care physician examines end of life questions from both analytic and practical angles.

Few areas of medicine are as rife with ethical questions as the end of life. 

Is it ever appropriate for a physician to hasten a patient's death?  Do those who are using a disproportionate amount of societal resources have a "duty to die"?  Is the terminally ill patient who takes his own life acting courageously, or taking the easy way out?  Who decides when "enough is enough"?  

In this talk, an ethicist and palliative care physician examines questions such as these from both analytic and practical angles, with reference to recent controversies such as Sarah Palin's supposed "Death Panels" and the current furore over the Liverpool Care Pathway.

Ethics at the end of life

What is the evidence for, and why do some people confess to, crimes they have not committed? How reliable is the testimony provided by eyewitnesses, especially by children? Can false memories be created?  What non-legal factors have been shown to influence jury verdicts and sentences imposed by magistrates and judges? Are humans better at detecting lies than machines?

Justice is too important to be left to police officers, prosecutors, judges and juries.

What is the evidence for, and why do some people confess to, crimes they have not committed? How reliable is the testimony provided by eyewitnesses, especially by children? Can false memories be created?  What non-legal factors have been shown to influence jury verdicts and sentences imposed by magistrates and judges? Are humans better at detecting lies than machines?

The talk provides a brief introduction to legal psychology and then address these contemporary issues drawing on legal psychology internationally. In the process, the question of how best to narrow the remaining gap between psychology and law will be answered.

Andreas Kapardis is Professor of Legal Psychology, Department of Law, University of Cyprus

The whole is more than the sum of the parts: narrowing the gap between Psychology and Law

Few would nowadays question that, as a matter of positive law, human rights law applies to armed conflict. Once confined to human rights courts, this principle is now settled in the jurisprudence of a wide range of international and domestic courts. Law of armed conflict specialists however remain concerned about the suitability of human rights law to regulate war. Furthermore – and perhaps even more crucially – the application of human rights law to war entails a radical, although often unnoted, change in the relationship between law and war. Can human rights regulate war? Are we sure that this development is an example of moral and legal progress?

This lecture, entitled 'The Devil and the Holy Water: Will Human Rights Tame War or Will War Corrupt Human Rights?', was delivered at the Lauterpacht Centre on Friday 25 October 2013 by Professor Guglielmo Verdirame, Professor of International Law at the Department of War Studies and the Dickson Poon School of Law, King's College London. 

Will Human Rights Tame War or Will War Corrupt Human Rights?

A lecture on November 9, 2013 at New York University.

Aquinas and Realism | Prof. John Haldane

This unedited conversation with David Brooks and E.J. Dionne comes from our produced show "David Brooks and E. J. Dionne on Obama's Theologian: Neibuhr and the American Present."

President Obama has cited Reinhold Niebuhr's teachings as significant in shaping his ideas about politics and governance. In a public conversation, we discuss the great public theologian's legacy and ideas -- and what influence they may play in the future of American politics.

See more at www.onbeing.org/program/obamas-theologian-david-brooks-and-ej-dionne-reinhold-niebuhr-and-american-present/136

[Unedited] David Brooks and E.J. Dionne with Krista Tippett

125 Business Ethics

Professor Harvey Mansfield is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Government at Harvard University. He received his AB and his PhD from Harvard University and has taught at Harvard since 1962. Professor Mansfield is a preeminent scholar of political philosophy and government, having written on or translated works by Aristotle, Edmund Burke, Thomas Hobbes, and Alexis de Tocqueville. He has received numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, the National Humanities Medal, and the Sidney Hook Memorial Award.

Bigelow Fellow Vince Buccola provided commentary.

This talk was recorded on February 18, 2013, and sponsored by the Federalist Society.

Harvey C. Mansfeld, "A Critique of Legal Realism"

Stuff You Should Know: What is a hangover, really?

Money making tips from #Garissa. Skiza. #Money #Hustle #Shujaaz Radio #DjBoyie

Scream Hello - Everything Is Always Still Happening 
RedLeader Records
2008

03 Business Ethics

Excerpt from Show 226  'Common Sense with Dan Carlin' 
http://www.dancarlin.com/disp.php/csarchive 

You gotta love this guy a buck a show is all he asks..
http://dancarlin.com 

Check out this whole series on ITunes. Also the "Hardcore History" podcast especially all his in depth stuff about the Roman Empire and US WWII Bombing Ethics and Genghis Khan and actually all of it is totally awesome. This fellow knows his stuff and he's absolutely right about what ails the USA today.

For Dan and associated persons if you see this, I want you to know I'm sharing on Sound Cloud just so I can get my friends on the facebook to hear erm see it in an attractive/easy to use way. 

No animals were harmed. Thanks. Utunga