The Center Leo Apostel (CLEA) is named after the Belgian philosopher and logician Leo Apostel (1925–1995), who was a professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and the Ghent University. Apostel is widely acknowledged for his ideas on atheistic religiosity, freemasonry and integrated worldviews. He was also an early advocate of interdisciplinary research and of bridging the gap between the exact sciences and the humanities. In this seminar, professor emeritus Jean Paul van Bendegem will give an impression of who Leo Apostel was, both in his life and in his writings, together with some personal recollections. He hopes to show why the research group CLEA is named after him.
About the speaker
Jean Paul Van Bendegem is a mathematician, a philosopher of science, and a professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Brussels. Van Bendegem received his master's degree in mathematics in 1976. Afterwards, he went to study philosophy. He attended lectures on the philosophy of mathematics from Leo Apostel. He received his master's degree in philosophy in 1979. Van Bendegem wrote his PhD thesis in philosophy on the subject of finitism under the supervision of Diderik Batens while at Ghent University. He defended his thesis in 1983. The content of the thesis was on notation systems, number theory, analysis, physics and logic in a finite empirical framework. Van Bendegem was the dean of the faculty of Arts and philosophy, and was until his retirement in September 2018 head of the CLPS (Centre for Logic and Philosophy of Science) at the same university. He is an honorary chairman of SKEPP (Research Society for Critical Evaluation of Pseudoscience and the Paranormal), an organisation that is prepared to pay 10,000 euros to anyone who can prove the validity of a paranormal claim. Van Bendegem is the university's representative to the CNRL–NCNL (French: Centre National de Recherches de Logique, Dutch: Nationaal Centrum voor Navorsingen in de Logica, English: National Centre for Investigations in Logic). He is the chief editor of their quarterly magazine Logique et Analyse.
Practical
The CLEA seminars are taking place simultaneously at the VUB campus in Etterbeek, Brussels, and online (via Zoom) and are open to everyone interested!
When. Friday January 13, 2023 from 14:00 until 16:00h
Where. VUB campus Etterbeek, room D.1.07.
Online. You can follow the seminar online via Zoom. You may need a Meeting ID and passcode to enter.
Zoom link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82757798426?pwd=em9sQlJDVjJYTEFRNk01dEJLWGxGUT09 Meeting ID: 827 5779 8426Passcode: 122127
Video of the seminar
