Monday, 4 August 2008

Sydney Opera House, Drama Theatre

An invitation from the Centre for Independent Studies and the Sydney Opera House
 

Thinkers of The Enlightenment, between the 17th and 18th centuries, set out to understand the world and themselves through reason rather than religion. Their ideas led to massive advances in science, economics and commerce, the arts and human liberty. Names such as John Locke, Adam Smith, David Hume, Isaac Newton, Thomas Jefferson and Voltaire still resonate today. Their ideas have made the modern world, but in 2008, politics, policymaking and pop culture seem to have long forgotten the importance of such progress and optimism.

The Enlightenment advocated reason as the primary source and basis of authority; today the 24-hour news cycle reigns supreme.  Are the principles governing nature, man and society still relevant today?  And why has human progress been sidelined as the solution to apocalyptic concerns about climate change, science and Islamic fundamentalism? We must again cultivate the legacies of freedom and progress that we inherited from the Age of The Enlightenment.

Chief Justice James Spigelman (Australia)
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of NSW and Lieutenant Governor of NSW

Dr Arthur Herman (USA)Author of The Scottish Enlightenment: The Scots' Invention of the Modern World and Gandhi and Churchill: The Epic Rivalry That Destroyed an Empire and Forged Our Age

Professor Frank Furedi (UK)
Professor of Sociology, University of Kent, and author of Culture of Fear, Politics of Fear and Invitation to Terror