“In the distant future I see open fields for far more important researches.  Psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by graduation.  LIght will be thrown on the origin of man and his history.”  This is taken from the ending lines of Darwin’s Origin of Species published 150 years ago.  The past 30 years have seen increasing interdisciplinary efforts in applying Darwinian principles to understand human cognition and behavior.  I will talk about this new knowledge development and the related research on human nature and behavior that is rooted in natural selection and sexual selection theories.

談起柏拉圖式的愛情，一般人只想起與精神層面有關，然而這是真的嗎？柏拉圖在《會飲篇》中，對愛情之現象及問題作了多方面的探討。講者嘗試透過此講，探討《會飲篇》中愛情的多層意義，以及與我們人生的關係。

哥伯尼的《天體運行論》是歷史上最重要的科學經典著作之一。它提出離經叛道、既違反權威學說又與人們經驗相逆的日心地動說，打破千年迷思。它帶來的思想革命，不但奠下現代科學的典範，更標誌著理性主義的抬頭。不過，這本改變了世界的書，卻幾乎沒有面世、極少人讀過、而且還有很多錯誤。五百年後的今天仍有閱讀它的價值嗎？現代人還能夠從這些科學經典吸取甚麼養份？講者將與大家分享他對這些問題的思索。

書店與媒體中關於老子《道德經》的各種解說光怪陸離，令人目不暇接。如何面對這種現象？我們將以老子中的主要概念，如自然為例，討論比較穩妥和可信的閱讀方式，澄清和梳理現代人閱讀古代經典的各種態度，方法和目的。 現代人閱讀古典的目的和方法可以大致分為歷史的、學術的、客觀的追求和現代的、自我的、實踐的追求。但是，老子的時代沒有股票市場，沒有金融海嘯，沒有愛因斯坦，沒有量子力學，現代人是否可以用老子的思想來回應現代社會的問題？是否可以用現代理論來解釋老子思想？為什麼可以或不可以？回答這些問題不能簡單地訴之於自信或信仰，而需要認真的公開的思考和探索。

With more half the world’s population now living in a city, this lecture returns to one of the ideological sources of our current urban vision:  French writers’ visions of Paris, from the second half of the 19th century to the turning point of the 20th century. Following the footsteps of the poet Charles Baudelaire, bewildered voyeur of street life, and novelists Victor Hugo, Balzac and Zola, we will try to better apprehend how these Parisian writers perceived the city and what it meant for them to be city-dwellers. Fin de siècle Paris, riven by unprecedented industrial and political revolutions, was becoming a great metropolis of the modern world. This new urban environment, full of contrasts and contradictions, would radically challenge and transform these writers’ understanding of themselves, others and the world – and require new stylistic forms to represent it. To what extent are we still living our city through the lens of this European legacy? Can current urban studies shed new light on the literature of those days – literature which has been a stepping stone not only in redefining the city and the power of art, but in inventing modernity itself? Selected book: Richard Sennett, The Conscience of the Eye, the design and social life in the cities. New York & London: W.W. Norton and Company, 1992

The Royal Society received its royal patronage in 1662; previously it was a “Philosophical Society”” located at Wadham College, Oxford, led by the Warden of the College John Wilkins. The aim of the Royal Society was to promote “experimental knowledge” as an alternative to the teaching of Aristotelian scholasticism prevalent in the Universities. Through its commitment to Francis Bacon’s principles for the “advancement of knowledge” and an active programme of experiments, the Royal Society played a key role in shaping the concept of modern science. This talk will discuss both the emergence of the “scientific culture” as an aspect of the English empiricist intellectual tradition, as well as a range of experiments, publications, and architectural designs by the members of the Royal Society which demonstrated the importance of the credibility of the “scientific fact” – one of the hallmarks of modern knowledge.