The Great Good Place: A Digest

The ‘third places’ of a culture are those happy gathering places that a community may contain, those ‘homes away from home’ where unrelated people relate are those places which Prof Ray Oldenburg examines in his book ‘The Great Good Place’. What are the importance of these spaces in our landscape ?  How are they vital for our society and social functioning ?  Why are they so apparently pivotal in our lives and should we be worried about their increasing rarity ? Read more…

Logic and Reasoning

The meaning of reason is to question, to call to account, to hold argument, discussion, discourse, talk or converse with another to employ reasoning or argument with a person in order to influence conduct or opinions; to think in a connected, sensible or logical manner; to employ the faculty of reason in forming conclusions.; to explain, support, infer, deal with by reasoning; to think out, to arrange the thought of in a logical manner.

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Reflections On Schizophrenia Etc by Kenneth Wilson

To begin our considerations, I would like to draw your attention to a recent article in New Scientist by Clare Wilson. In the article entitled Out of the Shadows, Wilson discusses aspects of the most recent thinking on schizophrenia. In the course of discussing the case of Peter Bullimore, a recovered schizophrenic, she points out that,

“The downsides [of medication] have always been seen as a necessary price to pay for relief from the condition’s devastating symptoms, but now that idea is being called into question. Not only are the side effects of these drugs worse than we thought; the benefits are also smaller.”[1]

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Educational History: Desiderius Erasmus (Gerrit Gerritszoon) 1455 to 1536

“It is an unscrupulous intellect that does not pay to antiquity it’s due reverence”

 

Erasmus was born an illegitimate child in Rotterdam on 27th October 1466 to Gerard of Gouda – a priest – and Margaret, daughter of a physician of Zevenbergen.  His ‘illegitimacy’ troubled him greatly through life and as late as 1516 he sought papal dispensation for the circumstances of his birth.

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The Root of Expertise by Alex Dunedin

Here is the address at the beginning of the Ragged year in Edinburgh where I deal with the issue of expertise and how we are all a part of it.  It recaps the project and what it’s ambitions are and set the scene for the first two talks of the Ragged University year…

Welcome to the beginning of the Edinburgh Ragged University year. There will be a break between the two talks when we can eat, refresh our glasses and get to know who is in the room.  This room is a space private to you, and like any personal space, it is not monitored with forms, questionnaires or number counting.  It is a space sacred to getting to know other people on your own terms and learning something new.
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