World Philosophy Day is the third Thursday of November—that’s next Thursday, the 17th.

Created by the Educational, Scientific, and Cultural organization of the United Nations (UNESCO), World Philosophy Day celebrates “the enduring value of philosophy for the development of human thought, for each culture and for each individual.” UNESCO says:

Philosophy is an inspiring discipline as well as an everyday practice that can transform societies. By enabling to discover the diversity of the intellectual currents in the world, philosophy stimulates intercultural dialogue. By awakening minds to the exercise of thinking and the reasoned confrontation of opinions, philosophy helps to build a more tolerant, more respectful society. It thus helps to understand and respond to major contemporary challenges by creating the intellectual conditions for change.

The theme of this year’s World Philosophy Day is “The Human of the Future”. UNESCO has collaborated with Le Fresnoy – National Studio of Contemporary Arts to put on a symposium and exhibition on the theme from November 16th through 18th, which will be webcasted live. For details, see this page.

Departments and individuals may want to arrange events to coincide with the day, or take advantage of the holiday to help promote philosophy at their schools. If you have plans to do so, or have held such events in the past, or have ideas about what to, please share them in the comments.

Originally appeared on Daily Nous Read More