Catherine Audard

Philosophy and Democracy
6.30pm | Tuesday 18 January 2000
Room S300, LSE

Speaker
Catherine Audard, Philosophy Department, LSE

One striking feature of Continental Philosophy has been the public role of philosophers in the civic forum, predominantly as advocates of freedom of thought and of democracy: see Socrates and Spinoza and recently, Jan Patocka and Vaclav Havel in Czechoslovakia or Jürgen Habermas in Germany. By contrast, the English speaking world does not seem to place such an emphasis on the responsibilities of philosophical discourse in public life. This series of Lectures will try and assess the value of both claims. They will question whether philosophy and/ or philosophers have anything to say about democracy.

Philosophy and Democracy
One striking feature of Continental Philosophy has been the public role of philosophers in the civic forum, predominantly as advocates of freedom of thought and of democracy: see Socrates and Spinoza and recently, Jan Patocka and Vaclav Havel in Czechoslovakia or Jürgen Habermas in Germany. By contrast, the English speaking world does not seem to place such an emphasis on the responsibilities of philosophical discourse in public life. This series of Lectures will try and assess the value of both claims. They will question whether philosophy and/ or philosophers have anything valuable to say about democracy.