New from the The Institute of Art and Ideas. Paradoxes of self-reference are found in mathematics, literature and philosophy from the Greeks to Derrida. Can we ever solve them? And do we need to? Literary critic Patricia Waugh, mathematician Peter Cameron and philosopher Hilary Lawson and tackle the problem here:
Language has been the focus of philosophical enquiry for the last century. But was the ‘linguistic turn’ a wrong turn, leading to a barren discipline without ‘real world’ influence? Is it time for a fresh approach to the big issues, or would this be a capitulation to intellectual fantasy?
The Panel
One of the world’s most influential analytic philosophers, John Searle, live from Berkeley, joins post-postmodernist Hilary Lawson and Cambridge logician Michael Potter to wage the ultimate war of words:
Personal integrity is still respected, but it has a Victorian quality, and is less valued in our dissembling age. Might this be a fundamental mistake? Could integrity be a basis for morality in a relative world, or is being true to oneself an anachronism?
The Panel: award-winning novelist Joanna Kavenna, philosopher and Closure theorist Hilary Lawson, and UCL neuroscientist Parashkev Nachev debate the limits of integrity.
The Philosopher's Eye 