The 12^th International Conference of
	ISSEI	In cooperation With
	International Society for the Study of European Ideas

Thought in Science and Fiction

August 2 – August 6, 2010

Scientific knowledge is so vitally important for the welfare of mankind that it no longer needs any justification. Nevertheless, the negative consequences of science and technology require continual vigilance. This vigilance need not necessarily lead to the radical reductionism that posits science as just another ‘fiction’. As suggested by the theme of the 11^th ISSEI conference in Helsinki, 2008, Language and the Scientific Imagination, we must foster the dialogue between science and literature in order to show their crucial interdependence. The pivotal role of language in ‘the two cultures’ is based on our conception of thought and is commonly believed to originate in sense perception. What we call fiction is thus the free rearrangement of our perceptual thought in language.

Historically, the great works of western literature preceded philosophical speculation on knowledge and science. Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides came before Plato and Aristotle, just as Dante, Cervantes, and Shakespeare came before Galileo, Descartes and Newton, and Flaubert, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky before Einstein.

The organizers of the 12^th conference of ISSEI, to be held at Çankaya University, Ankara, Turkey invite scholars from various disciplines such as History, Politics, Literature, Art, Philosophy, Science, and Religion, to re-examine, redefine and reassess the scope of interdisciplinary dialogue in the past and present.

The conference is divided into five sections:

1. History, Geography, Science

2. Politics, Economics, Law

3. Education, Sociology, Women’s Studies

4. Literature, Art, Music, Theatre, Culture

5. Religion, Philosophy, Anthropology, Psychology, Language

Conference Co-Chairs:

Cem Karadeli Çankaya University Political Science and Inter’l Relations Dept. Ogretmenler Caddesi 14 Genel Sekreterlik, 06530 Ankara Turkey Tel: +90 312 284 4500 ext: 135 Fax: +90 312 285 96 31 issei2010@cankaya.edu.tr

Ezra Talmor Kibbutz Nachshonim D.N. Merkaz, 73190 Israel Tel: +972-3-938-6445 Fax: +972-3-761-7778 Email: ISSEI@nachshonim.org.il

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