Philosophy Café | To listen and to comprehend

Sigríður Þorgeirsdóttir gives a lecture in Icelandic on silence and active listening.

When we realize that someone listens to us attentively we become happy as well as surprised while we think how defective active listening often is. We begin to perceive the hollow sound in unactive listening and contemplate how a person can respond when he or she has not even heard what I am saying. What is the reason for our lack of listening?

The basis for active listening is to be able to hear ourselves, to know how to listen to ourselves listening. Are we waiting for our opportunity to speak or are we really listening and trying to understand those who are talking? In the lecture Sigríður will discuss philosophical and scientific research on what it means to listen to ourselves when we think (a private conversation with ourselves) or when we have a conversation with others. For those interested she will lead an exercise in active listening.

Sigríður Þorgeirsdóttir is a professor in philosophy at Háskóli Íslands (University of Iceland) and she is the first woman to have a permanent professorship in philosophy at the university. She is born 1958 in Reykjavík, graduated from Menntaskólinn við Hamrahlíð and studied philosophy in Boston USA and in Berlin Germany, where she completed her doctoral degree in 1993.

Formerly she taught at at the University of Rostock, Germany and at Helsinki University. She has taught philosophy worldwide and is an accomplished international lecturer.

Further information:

Katrín Guðmundsdóttir, Library Manager at Árbær
katrin.gudmundsdottir@reykjavik.is