2025-09-30
1 小时 23 分钟Welcome to the LSE Events podcast by the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Get ready to hear from some of the most influential international figures in the social sciences.
Welcome to the launch event of the Jeremy Coller Centre for Animal Sentience.
My name is Roman Frick, I'm the head of the Department of Philosophy,
Logic and Scientific Method here at the LSE, and I will be your chair for tonight.
So you may be wondering why a centre that deals with animal sentience is based in a philosophy department and in a philosophy department here at the LSE.
You may think that sentience is a problem for neuroscience and should therefore be dealt with by scientists.
Well, yes and no. Well, of course, sentience is a scientific problem.
However, every scientific problem has a philosophical aspect, or several philosophical aspects.
These concern, for instance, the foundational assumptions of theories,
the research methodology, and the normative questions of the conduct of research.
These are problems where philosophy and science meet,
and this is precisely the area of philosophical investigation in which the LSE's philosophy department stands out.
The philosophy we practice here at the LSE has two key characteristics.
It is continuous with the sciences, both natural and social, and it is socially relevant.
So we don't do philosophical research in the proverbial armchair.
The philosophy we do is grounded in the real world with all its problems and imperfections.
And an important aspect of doing philosophy in this way is reflecting on the sciences that address issues of social importance.
We engage with these sciences in a critical spirit and hope to contribute to the betterment of these sciences through critical engagement.
Now animal sentience and animal rights are of course one such socially relevant problems that fall within the scope of the kind of philosophy that we do here.