Month: January 2015

In Our Time: Robert Boyle

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[soundcloud height=200]https://soundcloud.com/in-our-time-science/robert-boyle[/soundcloud]

Melvyn Bragg discusses the life and work of Robert Boyle with Simon Schaffer, Michael Hunter and Anna Marie Roos.

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life and work of Robert Boyle, a pioneering scientist and a founder member of the Royal Society. Born in Ireland in 1627, Boyle was one of the first natural philosophers to conduct rigorous experiments, laid the foundations of modern chemistry and derived Boyle’s Law, describing the physical properties of gases. In addition to his experimental work he left a substantial body of writings about philosophy and religion; his piety was one of the most important factors in his intellectual activities, prompting a celebrated dispute with his contemporary Thomas Hobbes.

For more “In Our Time” relating to Robert Boyle, see the programme on alchemy and the “In Our Time” blog.

George Boole 200 Inaugural Lectures, UCC, 5th Feb 2015, 6-9 pm

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There will be a number of lectures to commemorate the George Boole Bicentenary. The first addressed George Boole’s legacy and is now available to watch online here. Introduced by Desmond MacHale (Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at UCC and author of Boole’s biography), this lecture will be given by Professor Muffy Calder OBE (University of Glasgow) … Read more

‘Political Thought in Ireland: the Contribution of Ulster-Scots’, Queen’s University, Thur 22 Jan 2015, 9.30am – 5pm.

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The Ulster-Scots influence on Ireland’s political landscape will explored in a symposium entitled: ‘Political Thought in Ireland: the Contribution of Ulster-Scots’. The symposium is funded by the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure and supported by DCAL’s Ministerial Advisory Group on the Ulster-Scots Academy. The event will be held in the School of Sociology and … Read more

“Censorship and deception in the printing of Swift’s works 1690-1758” , National Print Museum, 15th Jan 2015.

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From ECIS: There will be a public lecture at the National Print Museum entitled ‘Censorship and deception in the printing of Swift’s works 1690-1758’, on Thursday, 15 January 2015, at 6.30pm. The lecture will be given by Professor Andrew Carpenter as part of the National Print Museum’s ‘Censored’ lecture series and is free of charge … Read more

Burke, Beauty and the Sublime

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Burke on the difference between Beauty and the Sublime (Youtube). Narrated by Harry Shearer and scripted by Nigel Warburton for the BBC Radio 4 series A History of Ideas.

Burke was not the first to write about the sublime, but in his A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1756) he suggested for the first time that the sublime and the beautiful are mutually exclusive. For Burke, the sublime could be ugly, and thus ugliness was not merely a lack of form as Augustine and others had suggested. Unlike the pleasure invoked by beauty, Burke suggested that the sublime evoked a “negative pain” which he called delight. The sublime evokes fear and attraction. Overcoming fear to confront the sublime removes the pain, producing the intense feeling of delight.

David Berman sets the end of the Irish Golden Age of Philosophy at the publication of The Sublime and the Beautiful, the last great work of the period. For more on the idea of the Sublime see this In Our Time episode. Also see this from Existential Comics on the sublime.

Edgeworth Schools

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Two schools set up by Maria Edgeworth (c) IrishArtHistory
Two schools set up by Maria Edgeworth
(c) Ciarán MacGonigal

Reproduced with permission of Ciarán MacGonigal @IrishArtHistory, originals here and here. Both schools, set up by Maria Edgeworth, are in Edgeworthstown. The one on the left which bears her family arms was opened in the Porters Lodge. The one on the right was the eighth and last she opened.

Maria Edgeworth (1 January 1768 – 22 May 1849) not only expressed philosophical ideas through her novels and short stories but also wrote a treatise Practical Education (1798), a progressive work that joins the ideas of Locke and Rousseau with scientific inquiry.