PHILOSOPHERS' CORNER

When

Sunday, October 9, 2011 -- 12:00 PM

Philosophy Talk is excited to announce eight new shows to be recorded live at The Marsh Theater in San Francisco and Berkeley!  The recordings are all scheduled for Sundays on four different dates (two shows each date): October 9th, 2011; January 22nd, 2012; April 29th, 2012; July 15th, 2012.

Tickets for any individual show are $15 dollars in advance, or $20 dollars at the door.  Multiple ticket pricing (advance sales only) is as follows: $25 for any two shows (same or different dates); $45 for any four shows; or $80 for all eight shows.

Tickets can be purchased online at Brown Paper Tickets, by phone, or in person through The Marsh's box office.

  • 12:00pm - Military Service and Public Life with David Kennedy.
    Is the military draft a natural expression of democratic values, or a challenge to our most basic concepts of individual rights and liberties? Are the values that make for an effective military consistent with the values that make for a free and democratic republic? If the government must have the power to defend the nation, does it follow that it must have the power to control events around the entire world? John and Ken enlist themselves in a discussion of military service and public life with Pulitzer Prize winning historian David Kennedy.  (buy tickets)
  • 3:00pm - Is Democracy a Universal Value? with Larry Diamond.
    Americans value democracy, and expect others to value it. But is it a universal value? Does God, or rationality, or something very basic about human sensibility, dictate that states should be organized democratically? What if there were empirical evidence that some non-democratic form of government is more likely to produce human happiness, cultural achievement, and sound money? John and Ken consider the universality of democratic values with Larry Diamond, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and author of The Spirit of Democracy.  (buy tickets)