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Jonathan Birch

@birchlse.bsky.social

5.9K followers 300 following 660 posts

Professor, LSE. Philosophy of science, animal consciousness, animal ethics. Director of The Jeremy Coller Centre for Animal Sentience.

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Jonathan Birch is a British philosopher and professor of philosophy at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His work addresses the philosophy of biology and behavioural sciences, especially questions concerning sentience, bioethics, animal welfare, and the evolution of social behaviour and social norms. .. more

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Psychology 15%

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Jonathan Birch @birchlse.bsky.social · Mar 25

An emotional day - I can announce I'll be the first director of The Jeremy Coller Centre for Animal Sentience at the LSE, supported by a £4m grant from the Jeremy Coller Foundation. Our mission: to develop better policies, laws and ways of caring for animals. (1/2)
www.lse.ac.uk/News/Latest-...

LSE announces new centre to study animal sentience

The Jeremy Coller Centre for Animal Sentience at LSE will develop new approaches to studying the feelings of other animals scientifically.

www.lse.ac.uk

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Reposted by Jonathan Birch

Thant Myint-U @thantmyintu.bsky.social · 2h

Seems that the Nobel peace prize is increasingly de-linked from its original concept - an award to whoever has “done the most or best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."

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Jonathan Birch @birchlse.bsky.social · 4h

The Nobel committee is always playing 3D chess. Giving the prize to Obama in 2009 looked idiotic but 16 years later it's caused a US president to think about peace for almost an entire week.

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Reposted by Brooke Harrington

Jonathan Birch @birchlse.bsky.social · 1d

It has been said: start an email with normal human pleasantries and only later get to your request for work.

But I say unto you: no, get your request into the first line so I can see it in the preview without having to click anything.

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Reposted by Jonathan Birch, Evan Roberts

Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 2d

It's so incredible how low homicide rates are in Europe. The UK, with a population of 70 million people, had fewer than 600 murders in 2023.
www.connexionfrance.com/news/double-...

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Reposted by Jonathan Birch

The Royal Institute of Philosophy @triphilosophy.bsky.social · 4d

"The Edge of Sentience: Risk and Precaution in Humans, Other Animals, and AI" by @birchlse.bsky.social (published by @oxunipress.bsky.social) has been shortlisted for the Nayef Al-Rodhan International Prize in Transdisciplinary Philosophy.

Learn more: royalinstitutephilosophy.org/news/shortli...

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Reposted by Jonathan Birch

Jonathan Birch @birchlse.bsky.social · 5d

Critics of Gandhi too often mix genuine political disagreement with sexual innuendo and rumour. The disagreements with Ambedkar were verifiably real, and it's tragic that they shared the same aim (liberation of Dalits) and yet disagreed so deeply about the means.

Jonathan Birch @birchlse.bsky.social · 5d

I don't think the idea of Gandhi as defender of the status quo can be at all reconciled with "Caste Must Go". There is clearly a challenge to the status quo, and one can debate whether it is radical enough.

Jonathan Birch @birchlse.bsky.social · 5d

You're already aware that he defended a deeply heterodox, anti-caste, anti-hierarchical version of the varna, so all that remains is a difference of emphasis - does one emphasise his radical heterodoxy or his failure to go even further.

Reposted by Jonathan Birch

Chris Bertram @crookedfootball.bsky.social · 6d

Oh God, not this again. The use of -ize rather than -ise does not mark a US/British English divide. Standard Oxford is -ize for example. There's a whole Inspector Morse episode about this. Expected better from the FT

Why I welcome Americanisation. Sorry, Americanization

News of the British Museum’s fundraising gala smacks of the sort of imitation and assimilation we’re good at

www.ft.com

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Reposted by James Connelly

Jonathan Birch @birchlse.bsky.social · 6d

What a great responsibility and a great privilege to be directing the world's first Centre for Animal Sentience. Many thanks to the ~300 in the room and ~500 online who attended our launch event. Wonderful to have you there on Day 1. www.lse.ac.uk/philosophy/s...

Launch event of the Jeremy Coller Centre for Animal Sentience, LSE

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Jonathan Birch @birchlse.bsky.social · 6d

He held racist views in the early 1900s but had moved beyond them by 1908, and opposed racism for the next 40 years. (sahistory.org.za/archive/some...). Sexually, he was celibate/asexual from his late '30s. (I'm aware of some claims otherwise from some biographers, which I think are wrong.)

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Jonathan Birch @birchlse.bsky.social · 6d

From 1935 onwards - "Caste Must Go" - I think it's impossible to read him as a defender of caste. Even before 1935, he never allowed it in his own communities. His campaigns focused on ending "untouchability" but that doesn't mean he truly supported the rest. archive.org/details/cast...

Caste Must Go and the Sin of Untouchability : Gandhi, Mahatma : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

iv, 108 pages 18 cm

archive.org

Jonathan Birch @birchlse.bsky.social · 7d

He held racist views in the early 1900s but had moved beyond them by 1908, and opposed racism for the next 40 years. (A source on this: sahistory.org.za/archive/some...).

Jonathan Birch @birchlse.bsky.social · 7d

Gandhi campaigned against "untouchability" for around 30 years. He fell out with Ambedkar, very sadly, but was at no point a defender of caste-based oppression. (A source on this: janataweekly.org/gandhis-appr...)

Reposted by Jonathan Birch

Frances Egan @francesegan.bsky.social · 7d

Shamelessly promoting my favorite paper. Everybody who was anybody in the history of science/philosophy/mathematics had a view on the moon illusion. frances-egan.org/uploads/3/5/...

frances-egan.org

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Reposted by Jonathan Birch

Josh Habgood-Coote @impractknow.bsky.social · 8d

You might like this on the role of spinning in Gandhi's political philosophy muse.jhu.edu/pub/56/artic...

Project MUSE - Gandhi’s Spinning Wheel: The Charkha and Its Regenerative Effects

muse.jhu.edu

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Jonathan Birch @birchlse.bsky.social · 8d

Many commentators celebrate Gandhi's political campaigns but downplay his broader nonviolent philosophy. I think it's more relevant today than ever. We see now that Gandhi's critique of capitalism and industrialization was not misplaced. We do need new ways of life - and the freedom to experiment.

Gandhi in 1906, three years after founding Phoenix Settlement in South Africa in 1903.

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Jonathan Birch @birchlse.bsky.social · 8d

India after independence went in a very different direction. Courageous experiments in nonviolent self-sufficiency do still go on (notably the Sarvodaya movement in Sri Lanka and Auroville in India) but the Gandhian dream of a scaleable model of self-sufficient village life remains elusive. (7/8)

Aerial view of the Matrimandir in Auroville, Tamil Nadu, India.

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Jonathan Birch @birchlse.bsky.social · 8d

What future did he want? He saw in India's 700,000 villages an incubator of new ways of life. He wanted "gram swaraj", "village self-rule": every village aiming for nonviolent self-sufficiency in its own way, free to experiment autonomously. Perhaps his boldest and most important idea. (6/8)

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