Philosophy For Our Time

Our time might seem radically different compared with earlier times. Information technology, social media, digitalisation, artificial intelligence, climate change, transform how we interact with and understand our world.  We might ask: Is our time really different?  What precisely does ‘our time’ mean?  Does it make sense to talk of “our time”? What, if anything, is the significance of ‘our time’? Asking these questions is doing philosophy!

Philosophy for our time differs from traditional academic philosophy in that it bridges the gap between abstract ideas and the diverse and dynamic world we inhabit and interact with.

Karl Marx famously said, “Philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it”. Marx’s idea ushered in an era of philosophy as political activism and post-truth that leads some to question the future of philosophy and what professional philosophers are doing when doing philosophy.

Philosophy for our time is philosophy in action, attempting to solve dilemmas that confront everyone: how to distinguish between fake news or image forgery and truthful information; the meaning of our experiences; and how we know what we should do or not do. Philosophy for our time aims to take us beyond theory, dogmatism and post-truth to provide us with practical personal knowledge for living harmoniously and happily with others in our shared world.

In this series of sessions, various speakers from diverse backgrounds will help us explore philosophy for our times from different perspectives.  In the final session, Dr Peter Gibson (author of A short history of philosophy and A degree in a book: Philosophy) will summarise the course and encourage everyone to engage dynamically in philosophical discussion.

The current programme is provisional at this time and the details may change