By Samuel Chadwick Teale

Link to video clip: https://photos.app.goo.gl/szJKpmR4YShjU5WCA

On Monday 17^th of September, I went to the National Gallery after closing, to help make two new films for The Centre for Philosophy and Art. As part of the volunteer crew team, I assisted with moving equipment with Envis (the film company) and the others, and quietly tiptoeing next to Jen (the Director) with the spotlight. It was surreal and special to visit the gallery after hours and see the paintings in a different light. Sometimes, this was literally the problem: the main ceiling lights would switch off after a minute or so, sometimes ruining an otherwise perfectly good piece of footage. So we kept the motion detectors activated by walking around, or, less congruously, a blend of amateur tai chi and contemporary dance. More profoundly, in the hall now named after Dame Myra Hess, I considered myself lucky to have experienced some paintings with these new insights, and with a unique intimacy and solitude. I’m very much looking forward to seeing the film (and officially visiting the National Gallery again)! I think I’ll stick with just a few paintings next time, as a few have really stuck with me. 

11th Feb at The National Gallery (zoom event)

Please join us for our new collaboration between The Centre for Philosophy and Art, King’s College London and the National Gallery London

Regrets may be painful or bittersweet. They can be ethically loaded or merely a question of ‘what if?’. But above all they can be understood as a mix of reminiscence and grief over things that we have done or have failed to do.  

However, regrets may also determine our future actions and could even be perceived as pleasurable or productive. What might this mean for artists and how we experience and interpret their work? And how might art help us to understand the regrets of others? Join philosophers, writers and artists to debate these questions by reserving a free zoom seat today.

Speakers include Vanessa Brassey, lecturer and co-director of the Centre for Philosophy and Art, Andy West, author of ‘The Life Inside: A Memoir of Prison, Family and Philosophy’, author and arts journalist Chloë Ashby, and Sacha Golob, Reader in Philosophy, King’s College London.

Colette Olive, PhD Candidate and Administrator for the centre for Philosophy and Art . (And occasional ‘ClapperBoarder’.)

Getting to visit the National Gallery after hours felt like a once in a lifetime opportunity. I felt like I was having a more personal encounter with the paintings. As a member of staff accompanying us put it, the paintings felt more present. The motion sensor lights would periodically go off and we needed to do a lot of dancing to keep them on! The inconsistent lighting made the paintings feel more dynamic. Watching Vanessa and Sacha bring out elements in the paintings I’ve never noticed before gave me a new perspective on the works. join us at our upcoming event ‘The Pleasures of Regret‘ learn more about these paintings too!

King’s College London Peace Lecture 2022

Wednesday 9 March, 6-8pm

Venue: KCL Strand Campus, Bush House 8th Floor (North), 30 Aldwych, London, WC2B 4BG

“The Humanization of Endless War and the Cause of Peace”

Speaker: Professor Samuel Moyn

Henry R. Luce Professor of Jurisprudence at Yale Law School and Professor of History at Yale University. https://campuspress.yale.edu/samuelmoyn/

The Peace Lectures are due to Alan Lacey, a life-long pacifist who taught philosophy at King’s College London for some fifteen years, and who left a generous bequest to fund a lecture series promoting peace. The series is organized by KCL Philosophy Department.

The lecture will be followed by a reception at Bush House, 8th Floor (South) and by the announcement of the winners of the Estella Newsome Memorial Prize essay competition (sponsored by the Christian Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament).

All are very welcome! Booking is required.

Registration: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/kcl-annual-peace-lecture-prof-samuel-moyn-tickets-254545080187

Check out the latest from the Agora, “What Hitchcock’s Vertigo teaches us about love” by Noël Carroll, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the CUNY Graduate Center!

See this new article by Noël Carroll in @aj_wendland‘s Agora series @NewStatesman. Noël Carroll is also the and author of Philosophy and the Moving Image and Arthur Danto’s Philosophy of Art.

@aj_wendland launched and runs the philosophy column in The New Statesman called Agora, which is a space for academics to address contemporary social, political and cultural issues from a philosophical point of view.

 by Jo Wolff (@JoWolffBSG), the Alfred Landecker professor of values and public policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, and governing body fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford!

See this new article by @JoWolffBSG on storytelling in the social sciences in @aj_wendland‘s Agora series @NewStatesman. Jonathan Wolff is also the author of “Ethics and Public Policy: A Philosophical Inquiry” (Routledge).

@aj_wendland launched and runs the philosophy column in The New Statesman called Agora, which is a space for academics to address contemporary social, political and cultural issues from a philosophical point of view.

Wishing everyone a safe and restful holiday season! – King’s Department of Philosophy (@kingsphilosophy)

Check out the latest from the Agora, “Why social science needs stories” by Alexander Prescott-Couch (@prescottcouch), who is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Tutorial Fellow at Lincoln College, Oxford.

See this new article by @prescottcouch on storytelling in the social sciences in @aj_wendland‘s Agora series @NewStatesman. @aj_wendland launched and runs the philosophy column in The New Statesman called Agora, which is a space for academics to address contemporary social, political and cultural issues from a philosophical point of view.

In a new 15 minute Masterclass Youtube video, Professor Bill Brewer (@mbillbrewer), Susan Stebbing Professor of Philosophy at King’s College London, asks whether we perceive the physical world directly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRmDqOOYs2k

Also new and exciting are two other 15 minute Masterclasses by Professor Robert Stern, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield, “What are Kant’s formulations of the supreme principle of morality?” and “How does Kant identify the supreme principle of morality?“

The Royal Institute of Philosophy’s (@RIPhilo) 15-Minute Masterclass series brings you accessible overviews of 30 philosophical topics from eminent philosophers. You can watch them all here on the Royal Institute of Philosophy’s Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqK-cZS_wviDkzVDUAw-AeZHrmt5mq8wB

You can listen to the podcast for Ideas on CBC Radio here!: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/how-a-debate-over-nothing-split-western-philosophy-apart-1.6268281

‘Why are there beings at all instead of nothing? That is the question,’ said philosopher Martin Heidegger.