"The philosophical baby: What children’s minds can teach us about the big questions" is the theme of the 2012 Sir Douglas Robb Lectures at The University of Auckland. Alison Gopnik, professor of psychology and affiliate professor of philosophy at the University of California at Berkeley, will deliver the lectures. She is an internationally recognised leader in the study of children’s learning and development, and was the first to argue that children’s minds could help us understand deep philosophical questions.
There are three lectures on: "Truth, imagination and learning", "What is it like to be a baby? Consciousness, attention and memory" and "Love and law: Caregiving and morality".
Philosophers and psychologists used to think that babies and young children were irrational, egocentric and amoral. But the last 30 years of scientific research has completely overturned that view - in some ways children are smarter, more caring and even more conscious than adults are. This new view of babies and young children has brought new and sometimes startling insights about some of the big questions of philosophy: how can we find the truth? Where does consciousness come from? What is the nature of morality?
Held in Fisher & Paykel Appliances Auditorium.
