Research seminar in Helsinki

From the website of the research group “Philosophical Psychology, Morality and Politics”:

Spring 2009

Friday, 30 January, 12-15 (Auditorium IX, Main Building, Unioninkatu 34, 3rd floor)

Imagination from Aquinas to Hobbes
Pekka Kärkkäinen
Juhana Lemetti

Friday, 27 February, 12-15 (Auditorium IX, Main Building, Unioninkatu 34, 3rd floor)

Madness and Morality
Vesa Hirvonen
Timo Kaitaro

Friday, 20 March, 12-15 (Lecture room 6, Aleksanterinkatu 7, 6th floor)
Christopher Shields (Oxford), Aquinas’s moral psychology

Thursday, 16 – Friday, 17 April

Sources and resources of political life in early-modern Europe
Quentin Skinner (keynote speaker), Ronald Asch, Martin van Gelderen, Mark Goldie, Catherine Larrère, John Robertson, Richard Serjeantson, Sari Kivistö, Virpi Mäkinen, Sami-Juhani Savonius-Wroth, Mikko Tolonen.

Friday,15 May, 12-15 (Auditorium XI, Main Building, Unioninkatu 34, 3rd floor)

Tobias Hoffmann (CUA), Free decision in Aquinas
Taina Holopainen

The seminar is open.

Learn Latin

Latin was the lingua franca of the intellectuals of the late medieval and Reformation period. Today, we have better resources than ever for learning different languages, including Latin. In addition to conventional textbooks, there are several sites on the internet devoted to such topics. One must only do a search on expressions like “learning Latin” to find several interesting resources. Below, I have picked three among the most unusual ones.

1. Latinum, an online Latin course, where you can improve your skills by listening. Includes a major part of George Adler’s textbook of conversational Latin. Lessons can be downloaded as podcasts or listened directly from the webpage.

2. If you want to improve both your daily prayer life and Latin skills, Vatican radio broadcasts daily laudes, vesperae and completorium, directly from Rome. You can listen to each broadcast any time after the recording has become available, usually within an hour.

3. Each Friday, the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE) sends the news review in Latin. The weekly Nuntii latini is also available in both written and audible form on a webpage.