Philosophy For Our Times

The economy is a vital part of the way we understand our lives and our politics more generally. But after years of growth, development, and progress, on the surface everything is rosy. But as Nobel Laureate Angus Deaton argues, behind the big picture many people have been left behind by the modern economy, and this is precisely because of the blindspots of modern economics. Join Deaton as he explores the ways economics needs to take from philosophy. Interviewed by the FT's Gillian Tett.

Sir Angus Deaton is the Senior Scholar and Professor of Economics at the Princeton School of Public Affair and a Nobel prize-winner.

Gillian Tett is an award-winning author, journalist, Provost of King's College Cambridge, and U.S. editor at large at the Financial Times.

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The journey in search of the destination

Does life have a purpose? Is that what gives life meaning? Or is it the journey that matters the most?

Join our four speakers - Nietzschean philosopher Babette Babich, clinical psychologist Frank Tallis, existentialist philosopher Jonathan Webber, and linguist philosopher Sandra Laugier - as they explore the different facets of this question. Setting ourselves goals in life seems both inevitable and necessary for the good life, yet achieving them might render living life meaningless. The balance between having a sense of purpose and experiencing things as they come is a hard one to set.

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Nietzsche, the birth of tragedy, and the technology trap with Babette Babich

Babette Babich discusses Nietzsche, the importance of tragedy, and the danger of technology interfering with our judgement. Babette Babich is a world renowned Professor of Philosophy at Fordham University in New York. In this in-depth interview, she looks to Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy to explain our love of suffering and towards the trials and tribulations of living in an age of technology which is smarter than we are.

Babette Babich is a leading philosopher of technology and science. Renowned for her exploration of the philosophy, history, and sociology of science as well as studies of ecology and animal philosophy, Babich is a Professor of Philosophy at Fordham University, New York City.

Her work crosses the analytic-continental divide, drawing heavily on Nietzsche, Heidegger, Adorno, and Illich. She is the director of The Nietzsche Society. Her latest book, Günther Anders’ Philosophy of Technology, explores the philosophy of isolation.

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The essential philosophy of fun

Do we need to have fun or is it an unnecessary excess? Are we living in an age of fun's decline, what with the moralism and strictures of Gen Z, or is there something else going on?

On this panel, our three guests - philosopher James Tartaglia, film-maker Myriam François, and writer Freya India - dive into the idea of fun: its philosophy, from Plato to the modern day; its politics, what with Gen Z being in the spotlight; its economics, how much of it we can afford; and more. If having fun - or avoiding it - is important to you, have a listen for some ideas on where to situate fun in your life and going forward. Or if meaning and purpose are what ultimately matters.

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There is an old Soviet joke, ‘Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man. Communism is its exact opposite.’ On the surface, neoliberalism, with its emphasis on free markets, competition and privatisation, is as far removed as possible from the Soviet Union. But behind the policies, could they be guided by the same false utopianism? Abby Innes, professor of Political Economy at the LSE, argues that the utopianism that guided the Soviet Union to disaster is eerily similar to the decline of our modern politics, and for Western states to succeed they need to throw off the shackles of utopianism and rediscover the scientific method.

Dr Abby Innes weaves political analysis with the scientific method to expose the ironic similarities between our current politics and the Soviet Union. She is an Associate Professor of Political Economy at the European Institute at the LSE. Her work focuses on party-state development, the transition from the Soviet system in Eastern Europe and the modern neoliberal state.

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