Contextual Lecture: How to be Philosophical About the Future
Join Professor A C Grayling, Master of New College of the Humanities, for a discussion of 'How to be Philosophical About the Future'.
To think philosophically is to think carefully about assumptions, evidence, values, arguments and counter-arguments, with the aim of trying to ascertain the truth or at very least to gain clarity and understanding. To be philosophical about the future is to think of its possibilities with our best powers and resources: which means using the knowledge provided by history, the insight provided by literature, the evidence provided by science, and the ability to reason provided by evolution, reason being our most distinctive human tool. Combine them all - and accept that we could still get it wrong! but we will have done our responsible best.
A. C. Grayling CBE MA DPhil (Oxon) FRSA FRSL is the Master of the New College of the Humanities, London, and its Professor of Philosophy. He is also a Supernumerary Fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford. He is the author of over thirty books of philosophy, biography, history of ideas, and essays. He was for a number of years a columnist on the Guardian, the Times, and Prospect magazine. He has contributed to many leading newspapers in the UK, US and Australia, and to BBC radios 4, 3 and the World Service, for which he did the annual 'Exchanges at the Frontier' series; and he has often appeared on television. He has twice been a judge on the Booker Prize, in 2014 serving as the Chair of the judging panel. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Vice President of the British Humanist Association, Patron of the UK Armed Forces Humanist Association, Honorary Associate of the Secular Society, and a Patron of Dignity in Dying.
This lecture is part of the 2018 Contextual Lecture Series: Tomorrow's World - Intimations of the Future.