Philosophy For Our Times

Doestoevsky vs Nietzsche - where do we find meaning in life?

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Dostoevsky and Nietzsche both regarded the creeping nihilism and meaninglessness of their time as a fundamental threat to humanity. While both were critical of modernity and rationalism, their solutions were radically opposed. Dostoevsky looked towards transcendence for an answer and found, in love and compassion, 'the chief law of human existence'. While Nietzsche declared God dead and found meaning in human nature and the assertion of human creativity.

Is Dostoevsky, as some have argued, a denial of all that is human and an acceptance of authority and oppression, or is it Nietzsche who is most dangerous in his endorsement of human desire and the will to power? Can meaning only be found outside of ourselves, in the love of others and in God's love for us? Or should we follow Nietzsche and see human will and desire as the means to create meaning?

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Does our very need for God point to the fact that he (or perhaps she, they) does not exist?

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Join well-known comedian and author David Baddiel in this honest (and funny!) conversation about humanity's deepest fears and desires with Chine McDonald, Director of Theos. Baddiel reads and cites from his 2023 book - 'The God desire: On being a reluctant atheist'. Can those of us who are atheists admit that, at some level, we also really love God?

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Rethinking economics - what is the meaning of productivity in the 21st century?

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"Productivity isn't everything, but in the long run, it is almost everything" claimed Paul Krugman. Throughout the twentieth century productivity, the average level of output for each hour worked, improved dramatically across the developed world. A greater increase than in the previous 2000 years. Driven by life changing technologies, such as electricity, combustion engines, and phones, living standards increased sevenfold. But since the 2008 financial crisis, despite computerisation and the internet, productivity growth in many countries has been low, static or even, in the case of Japan, falling.

Might the 20th century's extraordinary growth prove to be a unique event? Is tech itself the problem, seemingly creating solutions but in fact encouraging pointless activity? Or is the mistake to focus on productivity in the first place, and should we instead change how we value our activities and our time?

This debate was sponsored by Theos.

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How do we save freedom? And, please, would you like coffee without cream or coffee without milk?

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Join renowned philosopher and cultural critic Slavoj Zizek as he divulges his ideas regarding the apocalypse, ideology, freedom in the present moment, and more through a classic Zizekian mix of personal anecdotes, pop culture, and philosophical references. As he asserts, he did not exist before theory.

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An interview with Isabel Millar.

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Questions over artificial intelligence seem to dominate our contemporary. But underpinning the technology are an array of presuppositions - about thinking, knowledge and consciousness - that are in dire need of philosophical scrutiny. In this fascinating interview, Dr Isabel Millar discusses her work in challenging these assumptions by deploying the tools of psychoanalysis to the study of AI.

Dr Isabel Millar is a groundbreaking philosopher and psychoanalytic theorist, currently working at Newcastle University and the Global Centre for Advanced Study.

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Who are we? Why are we here? Does life have a meaning beyond itself?

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Join former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, and ground-breaking psychiatrist, literary scholar and author of 'The Matter with Things', Iain McGilchrist, to explore the nature of meaning, and why we should move beyond the assumptions of a materialist worldview from radically divergent perspectives. 

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What is the difference between narcissism and self-love, vanity and pride, in today's self-obsessed world?

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From books to podcasts, we are now told to embrace the idea of ‘self-love’. But are we creating a generation of narcissists? Join renowned philosopher Simon Blackburn to unpack the uses and abuses of loving ourselves.

Author of Think and Truth: A guide for the perplexed, Simon Blackburn has worked to bring philosophy to a wider audience. He was Professor of Philosophy at Cambridge and Vice President of the British Humanist Association.

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Can humans ever be inherently good or evil?

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Whether we see humans as essentially good or essentially selfish and violent has been central to our politics, our account of society, and our vision for social progress. But is this very distinction itself a mistake? Recently, Harvard scientists have shown humans to be both the kindest and most malevolent species on the planet. While figures like Hitler and Stalin though responsible for tens of millions of deaths were also remarkably empathetic in aspects of their private lives.

Should we give up the idea therefore that humans are either inherently good or bad and conclude that all of us are both at the same time with potentially profound consequences for our political beliefs? Or is it vital to retain the distinction to alert us to danger and to drive personal and social change? Or more profoundly, are the categories of good and bad themselves the underlying error and unhelpful, and even dangerous, ways of categorising human behaviour?  

Anthropologist and Harvard University Professor Richard Wrangham, renowened philosopher and cultural critic Slavoj Žižek, University of Hertfordshire professor Maria Balaska and the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams join Myriam François to discuss the nature of good and evil.

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Have we entered a post-knowledge era? Or was the idea that we can attain knowledge misleading in the first place?

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The acquisition of knowledge has been a central factor driving advance. And since Descartes, Western thought has placed the question of what we know, and how we know what we know, at the centre of philosophy. But might this focus on knowledge be a mistake? Feminist and postmodernist critics argue that in seeking to validate knowledge philosophers have merely sought to justify their own interests and prejudices. Instead they argue all knowledge is limited by perspective whether by culture, class, gender, race or the many other factors that influence understanding.

Should we give up the idea that our beliefs can provide us with objective knowledge? Should we reject epistemology as an attempt to elevate and make undeniable our particular perspective, interests and prejudices and focus instead on the consequences of adopting a given framework of belief? Or is knowledge essential to culture and the notion that beliefs might be definitively true vital to progress? 

Philosopher of race Tommy Curry, theoretical physicist Suchitra Sebastian and outspoken scientist Rupert Sheldrake debate the limits of what we can know. Hosted by Joanna Kavenna.

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