The University of Toronto Friends of Wisdom are convening a series of seminars devoted to discussing what our global problems are and how they are to be solved. Everyone in the university community is invited to attend and participate. Come check it out!
About the Seminars Devoted To Solving Global Issues
To see some of the source of inspiration for this seminar series, please read: (pdf) page 324 of this free book, as well as this book, this short list, and this article.
In the aforementioned article, Nicholas Maxwell writes "that sustained thinking about our fundamental problems and how to solve them…" needs to go "…on in an influential way within
academic inquiry. This is, indeed, a basic requirement for academic inquiry to be rational. Four elementary, almost banal, rules of reason are:
(1) Articulate, and seek to improve the articulation of, the basic problem to be solved.
(2) Propose and critically assess possible solutions.
(3) If the basic problem to be solved proves intractable, specialize. Break the basic problem up into subordinate problems. Tackle analogous, easier-to-solve problems, in an attempt to work gradually to the solution to the basic problem to be solved.
(4) But if one engages in specialized problem-solving in this way, make sure that specialized and basic problem-solving interact, so that each influences the other (since otherwise specialized problem-solving is likely to become unrelated to the basic problems we seek to solve).
Sustained thinking about what we may
call 'global' problems - global intellectually, and global in the sense of encompassing the earth and humanity as a whole - must go on in universities in a way that influences, and is influenced by, more specialized research if rules (1), (2) and (4) are to be put into practice, and academic inquiry is to meet elementary requirements for rationality." It should be "…ensure[d], as a bare minimum, that universities are organized in such a way that each university has a big, prestigious Seminar or Symposium, open to all at the university from undergraduate to vice-chancellor, which meets regularly to explore global problems in a sustained way, and in a way that is capable of influencing, and being influenced by, more specialized research.
From what I have said so far, one would expect such global seminars to be commonplace in universities around the world.
I know of no university anywhere that has such a global
seminar."
An aim of this event series is to present such a global seminar.
Join us on Monday October 14 for the first one! You don't want to miss it.
If you're part of an organization that might be interested in co-presenting or sponsoring (a) seminar(s), please contact uoft.friend...@gmail.com.
To stay informed of further global seminars in Toronto, visit (and bookmark) the "Friends of Wisdom: Toronto" website, and/or the U of T Friends of Wisdom Eventbrite page.
Optionally fill out this poll with your availability so as to help us decide when the best times to schedule seminars are. We'll try to accommodate as many people as possible.
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We hope you can make it!
Cheers,
University of Toronto Friends of Wisdom
