[SydPhil] Fwd: FW: Invitation to 'Philosophy in the Age of Democracy' at the University of Sydney, 25 March 2014

[Dalia Nassar]

  Having trouble viewing this email? View an online
version<http://wordvine.sydney.edu.au/files/59/4301>          WE
INVITE
YOU TO   *A SYDNEY IDEAS*
FORUM       [image: The University of Sydney]                 PHILOSOPHY IN
THE AGE OF DEMOCRACY



*Co-presented with the Department of Philosophy
<http://sydney.edu.au/arts/philosophy/about/index.shtml>, School of
Philosophical and Historical Inquiry *Plato notoriously condemned the
democratic way of life as the second-to-worst form of life, and he equally
notoriously recommends rule by philosophers as the only available cure.
This suggests a traditional hostility between philosophy and democracy,
with philosophers casting themselves as the would-be overlords of politics
and culture. Suspicions of this hostility were re-activated after the
Second World War by concerns about barbaric political movements supposedly
inspired by philosophical outlooks, and in a diminished form, similar
suspicions towards philosophy as of interest only to non-representative
"elites" sometimes reemerge in discussions of government funding of the
humanities.

For good reasons, we have trouble accepting both Plato's cure and his image
of philosophy. Yet his indictment of democratic life and culture is as
pertinent as ever. How then, if it at all, might a refigured practice of
philosophy play a central, vital role within a flourishing democratic
culture? How does healthy democracy both depend on and inform philosophical
education? Furthermore, how might philosophical research into apparently
non-practical matters be of general relevance to the community? What
benefits might tax-payers expect to flow from public support of
philosophical research? In the light of comments made in last year's
federal election campaign about research funding for philosophy projects, a
panel of philosophers address different aspects of these pressing questions.

*Participants:*

*Professor Paul Redding* is  ARC DORA Fellow in the department of
Philosophy at the University of Sydney. He works on the continental
idealist tradition in philosophy and its relation to contemporary movements
in philosophy.

*Professor Richard Eldridge* is the Charles and Harriett Cox McDowell
Professor of Philosophy, at Swarthmore College, USA. He specialises in
aesthetics and theory of criticism, philosophy of language, philosophy of
mind, philosophy and literature, German idealism and Wittgenstein.

*Dr Dalia Nassar* (participating chair) is an ARC DECRA Fellow in the
Department of  Philosophy at the University of Sydney. Her areas of
research include German romantic and idealist philosophy, history of the
idea of nature, environmental philosophy, aesthetics, and theories of
interpretation.

more event information<http://whatson.sydney.edu.au/events/published/sydney-ideas-philosophy-in-the-age-of-democracy-forum>



TUESDAY 25 MARCH
6 to 7.30pm
Law School Foyer
Level 2, Sydney Law School
Eastern Avenue
The University of Sydney
Click here for venue
information<http://sydney.edu.au/law/about/campus.shtml><http://sydney.edu.au/law/about/campus.shtml>


RSVP
Free event with online registration requested. Click
here<http://whatson.sydney.edu.au/events/published/sydney-ideas-philosophy-in-the-age-of-democracy-forum>
for
the online registration page.

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