Skip to ContentSkip to Navigation

Rudolf Agricola School

For sustainable development
More News & Events

Read the thought-provoking interview with Marc Pauly on the power of dialogue with others & nature

25 January 2023
"The contradictions in society are immense. We need to bridge this gap, and the I-Thou relationship is good place to start.”

Read the thought-provoking interview with Marc Pauly by Thomas Vos on the power of dialogue with others & nature, on the UG-website. Pauly is a member of our D&g theme .

Abstract:

Marc Pauly is a researcher in the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Groningen. He has a PhD in logic with a focus on computing science, and studied and taught at Stanford University. His mission is to generate a greater understanding between people, and between people and nature. He sees knowledge as a way of helping society, whether this involves safety and nuisance in a neighborhood in Groningen or the way that we are treating nature in 2023. Philosophical theory provides an important lead.

Pauly's background is interdisciplinary with a degree in Symbolic Systems at Stanford University which combined computer science, psychology, and philosophy. He specialized in logic which is part math and part philosophy. However, his interests changed along the way and he moved from computer software to social software, thinking about how people make use of algorithms to organize society.

He arrived in Groningen in 2008 and his focus turned to socio-political philosophy. He set to work on a deliberative survey about safety and nuisance in the Groningen neighborhood of De Wijert. This was a novel approach in the Netherlands at the time. Surveys like this work by choosing a random sample of people, who are then primed with information about various aspects of a topic. They then make a choice, generating a representative result. He also applies the philosophy of Martin Buber, who distinguished between two matters: the I-It relationship, based on the view of other human beings as people with objective features, such as hair color, gender, or age and the I-Thou relationship which emphasizes the importance of real, face-to-face interactions between two individuals, as a way to build understanding and empathy.

Last modified:02 June 2023 2.31 p.m.
View this page in: Nederlands

More news

  • 12 September 2023

    Art in times of AI

    Leonardo Arriagada Beltran conducted his PhD research on the interface of computer-generated art and the constantly evolving field of Artificial Intelligence (AI). He will defend his Phd thesis on 21 September. His research offers valuable insights...

  • 28 August 2023

    Harish Vedantham and Casper van der Kooi nominated for 'Wetenschapstalent 2023'

    Harish Vedantham and Casper van der Kooi have been nominated by New Scientist for Wetenschapstalent 2023 (Science Talent 2023). This election is meant to give young scientists and their research a stage.

  • 26 July 2023

    Five promising UG researchers to top institutes abroad on Rubicon grants

    No less than five promising PhD graduates from the University of Groningen will be able to conduct research at top institutes abroad for two years thanks to the Rubicon programme organized by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research...

Follow us onyoutube twitter