The Life and Death of the Enlightenment

Justin Champion, Steve Fuller, Robert Eaglestone

Are we witnessing the death of ideals which for 300 years have driven the progress of Western society and defined its outlook?

Historian Justin Champion, controversial sociologist Steve Fuller and postmodern philosopher Robert Eaglestone get to grips with where are and where we've come from.

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The Age of Immorality

Richard Bronk, Christopher Hamilton, Phillip Blond
Simon Blackburn chairs

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, but above all it was an age without morality.   

Do we live in a time without morals?  Is an absence of morality damaging to the fabric of society? Or is this an inevitable response to the vacuum left by organised religion?

Economist Richard Bronk, political theorist Phillip Blond and philosopher of religion Christopher Hamilton consider if we are facing moral anarchy and whether we need to find a solution.

Banks, Bonuses and Inequality

Phillip Blond, Eamonn Butler, Fabienne Peter
David Goodhart chairs

Widespread outrage has been the response to the “bonus culture” of big banks.

What is at issue here? Is it the sheer scale of such bonuses, or the reward for failure and the lack of merit that is the problem?  What sort of equality do we want: that of opportunity, or outcome?

The Tyranny of Freedom

Zygmunt Bauman
Julian Baggini chairs the Q&A

The famed sociologist considers the ramifications of our individualised, live-for-the-moment society. When we owe allegiance to nothing, and no-one, and everything is expendable in the pursuit of an ill-defined notion of happiness, is our “freedom” doing us more harm than good?

The Limits of Freedom

Will Hutton, Eamonn Butler, David Goodhart
Fabienne Peter chairs.

Laissez faire capitalism is in retreat.  The burst of the economic bubble has rallied calls for increased regulation from all sides and with it demands to control individual excess.

To what extent should freedoms be limited?  Who regulates the regulators?  And is there a danger that we will jump from the frying pan into the fire?

New Ways of Thinking

Christopher Hamilton, Hilary Lawson, Shahidha Bari
Julian Baggini chairs

If reason and truth have both been robbed of their authority, where do we go next?  Can we muddle along where we are, should we be returning to a pre-critical mode of thinking, or must we find alternative ways of thinking about the world?

Julian Baggini looks for new answers from philosophers Christopher Hamilton, Hilary Lawson, and Shahidha Bari.

Imagination in economics: uncertainty, metaphor and what economists can learn from the Romantics

Richard Bronk

Is over-reliance on reason at the root of the present economic crisis? Richard Bronk, author of The Romantic Economist (CUP, 2009), argues that economies are driven by creativity, fear and emotion. 

Geoff Mulgan chairs Q&A

Sponsored by the Forum for European Philosophy

The Return of Revolution

Phillip Blond, Geoff Mulgan, Alex Callinicos,
Shahidha Bari chairs

Talk of a crisis in capitalism may be premature but tales of the end of history now seem quaint and revolutionary talk is out of the cold and back into reality. 

Is it credible to speak of wholesale political transformations? If revolution were to return, what would it look like?

Radical Tory theorist Phillip Blond, former director of Blair’s strategy unit, Geoff Mulgan, and Marxist thinker Alex Callinicos contest the ideals that should be motivating political change.

21st Century Enlightenment

Susan Neiman

Hot foot from Berlin where she runs the influential Einstein Forum, philosopher Susan Neiman calls for a new enlightenment.

Susan Neiman’s latest book ‘Moral Clarity’ was one of the New York Times’ top 100 notable books of 2008.

Kenan Malik chairs Q&A

Sponsored by The Liberal

Beyond Progress: Science & Religion

Douglas Hedley,  Alun Munslow,  Mark Vernon, Ken Binmore

The Enlightenment called for the light of reason and science to provide progress in place of the prejudices of  religion.

In the current era, when postmodernists have argued that science and religion are merely competing narratives, to what extent can we look to either science or religion to deliver truth?  Is it still possible to talk of progress at all and, if not, then where are we going?

Dreams of Utopia

Ruth Levitas,  AC Grayling, Kenan Malik,  Alex Prichard, 

Susan Neiman chairs

Dreams of utopia have all too frequently turned into nightmares.  Is there space left for utopian visions and if so what might they look like?  Or are they to be avoided as dangerous mirages that risk leading us to destruction?

Imagining the Sacred

Douglas Hedley, Kenan Malik, Hilary Lawson

Mark Vernon chairs

Fundamentalism may be on the rise worldwide but, in many parts of the west, belief in organised religion continues to ebb away.  Is there a role for the sacred in our culture of surface and how might it be approached?   

Philosopher of religion, Douglas Hedley, journalist Mark Vernon, and post-post-modern philosopher Hilary Lawson imagine alternative worlds.

Future Culture

Phil Hutchinson, Joe Kerr, Anders Sandberg

Siân Ede chairs

Where might our values and beliefs, or our lack of them, take our culture?   Will environmentalism be our new religion?   Will technology re-shape human nature?

Environmental philosopher Phil Hutchinson, Oxford University futurist Anders Sandberg, and architectural historian Joe Kerr discuss the shape of the world to come.