***UPDATE: a recording of the talk and the discussion afterwards is available here. (N.b. it starts rather quietly, but as soon as the discussion starts, the volume is much louder).
Monthly Archives: October 2018
Help needed
When I was doing the student inductions, I thought about looking for an app to help with referencing. I was lazy and went with the first one I found, MYLibrary (android) which allows you to scan barcodes of books and it then adds all the details required for your bibliography. This is useful and allows you to add comments on the texts. I am sure there are better ones out there.
For my own note taking I use Google Keep, and I write using their Docs so that I open Keep directly from within the word processor with a couple of bibliography add-ons. This means I can take pictures of quotations for later with my phone, add in thoughts when I am on the bus and so on. I know others use Evernote for the same reasons.
But I want to open this further. I am leaning Spanish by both private lessons and using the Duolingo app to reinforce vocabulary. I would really like to know if others have any specific apps they use which they find useful. Those directly to the learning of philosophy do, of course, interest me most.
I’d really appreciate if you would tell me which apps you use and which you find more useful, or what you would like to be able to do with your phones/tablets. Please just add in below. This is so we can build and share a list of useful tools to improve the learning environment. Bear in mind these apps are supposed to facilitate thinking (like a word processor does) rather than replace it.
You can either put in a comment below or just email me directly.
David
Film Screening
A film screening, a week on Friday, and other events in Philosophy: a poster for you to display where you see fit:
Newcastle Philosophy on Facebook
New Collection on Philosophy and Translation
A New Collection on Philosophy and Translation, from Routledge, including contributions from one of our own:
Mary Midgley
A message from Ian Ground, which we can only echo:
It is with sorrow that I must report the death of the philosopher, Mary Midgley, at the age of 99.
My own and the sadness of all who knew her, personally, through her teaching or through her writings, will be mixed with a profound sense of celebration of a great souled life of the mind, lived to the full.
Mary’s death came quickly with the lack of fuss and drama and with the pragmatic sanity, that all who had the privilege of knowing Mary would recognize as her signature. She felt unwell, called a close friend to ask him to let her sons know and 45 minutes later had passed.
The last time I saw Mary, just two weeks ago, she had ready for me a copy of her latest book. What is Philosophy For? https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/what-is-philosophy-for-9781350051089/
There could be no more appropriate response from the philosophical community than to read and further recommend her last contribution to the life of our ideas and our culture. It is a work of wit and warmth, and of wisdom and warnings.
If you were touched, inspired or energized by Mary’s thought and wish to make your thoughts about her work known, please send your reply directly to me at Ian.ground@newcastle.ac.uk. I shall collate responses and make them available in subsequent memorial events. Please do ensure that that you reply off list.
There will be more eloquent obituaries than I can offer and events and publications to celebrate Mary’s life and thought.
But the most fitting tribute at present is the project to celebrate the philosophical thought of the Oxford generation of women philosophers of which she was part. Please visit http://www.womeninparenthesis.co.uk/about/ to find out more. You may also be interested to note the coming Royal Institute of Philosophy series A Centenary Celebration: Anscombe, Foot, Midgley, And Murdoch http://royalinstitutephilosophy.org/events/london-lecture-series/
Philosophy (academic) Events
All students and staff and alumni welcome to these events, which may be added to as time goes on:
AUTUMN TERM:
Week 4 FILM SCREENING: Being in the World: Friday 1–2:25pm MERZ.L301
Week 6 Tuesday 6th November 2018, 3pm-5pm Brian O’Connor (University College Dublin), Autonomy as a Political Problem, BSTC.2.51
Week 11 FILM SCREENING: Vita Activa (on Hannah Arendt), Friday 1–2:55 pm in MERZ.L301 (possibly much shorter: I’ve yet to ascertain the film’s length)
SPRING TERM:
Thursday 31st January 2019, 4pm–5pm, BSTC.B.32 – FILM SCREENING: Bryan Magee interviews Herbert Marcuse, BSTC.B.32
And more film screenings, on Sartre, to follow in later weeks.
Which, is to be confirmed.
(If anyone can find a film on Tran Duc Thao, the Vietnamese-French philosopher we’re also covering on the Phenomenology course, with which these film screenings are loosely connected, there are cash prizes.)