Stella Aldwinckle Series 2025: Trust
The Stella Aldwinckle series of events continued in Trinity 2025 with an afternoon event at Somerville College on the theme of Trust, bringing together graduate students and researchers across the disciplines to discuss what role trust plays in academic (and the rest of) life, and how we can be part of building more trusting and trustworthy communities.
Tom Simpson (the incoming Alfred Landecker Professor of Values and Public Policy, Blavatnik School of Government) spoke to us on the topic of 'Who do we trust?', drawing on his research in the philosophy of why and how humans trust one another, and why that trust is valuable. He challenged us to consider where the basic ability to trust comes from, and how that can be nurtured in our contexts.
Over refreshments, we then discussed in small groups how trust figures into our academic and wider lives, how we decide who to trust, and what makes for a trustworthy institution or society.
The Oxford Pastorate hosts the Stella Aldwinckle Series yearly, drawing on the tradition of the University’s Socratic Club of the 1950s and 60s, frequented by Iris Murdoch, Elizabeth Anscombe, C.S. Lewis and others. Its purpose is to bring together graduate students and early career researchers to consider big questions in rigorous, open conversations.
