{"id":2904,"date":"2016-11-21T18:30:06","date_gmt":"2016-11-21T18:30:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ffephilosophy.org\/theforum\/?p=2904"},"modified":"2016-11-23T14:40:53","modified_gmt":"2016-11-23T14:40:53","slug":"does-the-universe-have-a-purpose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ffephilosophy.org\/theforum\/does-the-universe-have-a-purpose\/","title":{"rendered":"Does the Universe Have a Purpose?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Beverley Clack\/ John Cottingham\/ Tim Mulgan<\/h3>\n

Listen to the podcast<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

6.30-8pm, Monday 21 November 2016
\nWolfson Theatre, LSE<\/p>\n

Speakers<\/strong>
\nBeverley Clack<\/a><\/span>, Professor of Philosophy of Religion, Oxford Brookes University
\nJohn Cottingham<\/a><\/span>, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, University of Reading
\nTim Mulgan<\/a><\/span>, Professor of Moral and Political Philosophy, University of St Andrews and Professor of Philosophy, University of Auckland<\/p>\n

Chair<\/strong>
\nPeter Dennis<\/a><\/span>, Fellow,\u00a0Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method,\u00a0LSE\u00a0and Forum for European Philosophy Fellow<\/p>\n

The traditional answer to this question is that God has a plan for the universe and we are part of it. Almost as traditionally, atheists have countered that the universe has no purpose since a benevolent God does not exist. But what if the purpose of the universe does not involve us\u2014or God\u2014at all? Tim Mulgan explores this possibility in his recent book Purpose in the Universe<\/em> (Oxford University Press, 2015). He joins a panel of metaphysicians and philosophers of religion to debate his view.<\/p>\n

Image credit:\u00a0Greg Goebel, ‘Paley’s watch<\/a><\/span>‘<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Beverley Clack\/ John Cottingham\/ Tim Mulgan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1169,"featured_media":2707,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_expiration-date-status":"saved","_expiration-date":0,"_expiration-date-type":"","_expiration-date-categories":[],"_expiration-date-options":[]},"categories":[109],"tags":[56,66],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-2904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-podcast","tag-metaphysics","tag-philosophy-of-religion-bytheme"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/ffephilosophy.org\/theforum\/files\/2016\/07\/paleys-watch-.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6zUjQ-KQ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ffephilosophy.org\/theforum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ffephilosophy.org\/theforum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ffephilosophy.org\/theforum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ffephilosophy.org\/theforum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1169"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ffephilosophy.org\/theforum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ffephilosophy.org\/theforum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ffephilosophy.org\/theforum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ffephilosophy.org\/theforum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ffephilosophy.org\/theforum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ffephilosophy.org\/theforum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2904"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ffephilosophy.org\/theforum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}