Julian Baggini

Julian Baggini faces the music! Feat. The Invisible Apples
2024-06-03 19:30 - 21:00 (Europe/London) | The Folk House, Bristol, 40a Park St, Bristol, BS1 5JG, United Kingdom
Come and have fun, listen to some great music, drink, eat and chat…..and at the same time raise money for two very worthy causes. The Invisible Apples will play 2 unplugged sets from their album ‘The Golden Threads and Invisible Lights of Duka’, and in between will be ‘in conversation’ with Julian Baggini about their collaboration, how they create their work, and maybe even, why humans create music & what the point of it is! A Bristol Humanists fundraiser.

Philosophical Times
2024-06-01 10:30 - 11:30, 2024-03-16 10:30 - 11:30, 2024-02-24 10:30 - 11:30 | St Georges Bristol, Great George Street, Bristol, BS1 5RR, United Kingdom
A regular exploration of some of the big ideas that connect with and emerge from the month’s news stories. Sit back and enjoy the live conversation or take part as much as you like – this is always a lively and inspiring discussion!

Philosophy Salon: Philosophy & Fiction
2024-03-27 19:30 - 21:30 | St Georges Bristol, Great George Street, Bristol, BS1 5RR, United Kingdom
Philosophy is often presented as dry, analytic and logical. However, there have always been writers who have explored philosophy through the imaginative lens of fiction. In this salon, Julian Baggini will be in conversation with two of our most gifted philosophical novelists, Samantha Harvey and Joanna Kavenna. You’ll have a chance to join the discussion too.

How to Think Like a Philosopher
2024-01-21 11:20 - 12:00 | The All Saints, Lewes, BN7, United Kingdom
The Sunday Times bestselling author of ‘How the World Thinks’ shares his twelve key principles for a more humane and balanced approach to thinking in this vital new talk.

How to Think like a Philosopher
2023-07-26 17:00 - 18:00 | Online
In this course, Julian Baggini will extract the key lessons to be learned from the philosophers who have been specialists in sound thinking for millennia. In an age which fetishizes novelty and innovation, there is a need to relearn the greatest lessons from the past and appreciate that which is timeless is always timely. In addition to the technical nuts-and-bolts of reasoning, he will focus on the attitudes, habits, and character traits that make the difference between the clever and the wise. We’ll look at the many traps that await the would-be skilled reasoner and see why, like any tool, reasoning can be misapplied and misused, even with the best of intentions. And we won’t shy away from the sheer difficulty of thinking well. When sugar-coating goes too far, you end up with sickly confectionery and no nourishment. In our time-poor attention economy we are seduced by the promise of hacks, shortcuts, cognitive accelerators. But thinking reaches limits of efficiency very quickly and every corner cut comes at a cost. We need to hack off the hacks, not find more of them.

What Politics Can Learn From Philosophy
2023-06-06 18:00 - 19:00 | Online
Philosopher Julian Baggini comes to Intelligence Squared to share the insights of his new book How to Think Like a Philosopher: Essential Principles for Clearer Thinking. In conversation with government minister Jesse Norman, who was himself once an academic philosopher, Baggini will set out the techniques, methods and principles that guide philosophy, and show how they can be applied to our own lives – and our politics.

Hay Festival – In conversation with Daniel Hahn
2023-06-01 17:30 - 18:30 | Hay Festival, Hay-on-Wyye, United Kingdom
Philosopher Julian Baggini, author of How to Think Like a Philosopher, talks to writer and translator Daniel Hahn about conveying big ideas, the importance of broadening audiences for big subjects and the value of simplicity while also holding on to complexity. He uses everyday examples and contemporary political concerns – from climate change to implicit bias – to explore the techniques, methods and principles that guide philosophy, and how they can be applied to our own lives, proving that philosophical thought can promote incisive thinking.

Aye Write, Glasgow
2023-05-24 19:45 - 20:45 | Glasgow Royal Concert Hall
As politics slides toward impulsivity, and outrage bests rationality, how can philosophy help us critically engage with the world? Julian Baggini’s How to Think Like A Philosopher is a revelatory exploration of the methods, tenets and attitudes of thought that guide philosophy, and how they can be applied to our own lives.
Drawing on decades of enquiry and a huge range of interviews, Baggini identifies twelve key principles that promote incisive thinking. Pay attention; question everything; seek clarity, not certainty: these are just a few of philosophy’s guiding maxims which can be applied to everything from understanding the impact of climate change to correctly appraising our own temperaments. Both a fresh introduction to philosophy covering canonical and contemporary philosophers, and an essential, practical guide to good thinking, How To Think Like A Philosopher shows us the way to a more humane, balanced and rational approach to thinking, to politics, and to life.

Daniel Chandler on Free and Equal
2023-05-16 19:30 - 20:30 | Topping & Company Booksellers of Bath, York Street, Bath, Somerset, BA1 1NG, United Kingdom
Daniel Chandler talks with me about his new book, Free and Equal, based on the revolutionary thought experiment proposed by the twentieth century’s greatest political philosopher, John Rawls. Chandler argues in this hugely ambitious and exhilarating intervention, it is by rediscovering Rawls that we can find a way out of the escalating crises that are devastating our world today.

Interplanetary Kitchen
2023-05-10 18:30 - 19:30 | Online
The Science, Philosophy and Hard Problems of Food in Deep Space.
Panel: Julian Baggini, Bob Perry, Shahreen Reza, Phil Ruskin, Gary Stutte, Tiffany Vora
Moderator: Kris Kimel, Founder of Humanity in Deep Space and co-founder of the commercial space company Space Tango.

What Does It Mean to Be Human?
2023-04-25 19:00 - 20:00 | Waterstones, Broadmead, Bristol
Sarah Bakewell reflects on 700 years of humanist thought, perusing the work of various writers, thinkers, scientists and artists who have spent time trying to understand what it means to be truly human. She tells the story of humanism, explaining why it has continued to flourish for so many years in spite of opposition from other groups.
Bakewell will be interviewed by philosopher Julian Baggini, whose new book How to Think Like a Philosopher outlines the 12 key principles to follow for a more balanced, rational and humane approach to thinking. Together, they will discuss the humanist values of open-mindedness, optimism, freedom and the power of the here and now, and their role in helping steer us through dark times throughout history.

How to Think Like a Philosopher
2023-03-15 19:30 - 21:00 | Online
Talk for the Humanist Association of Ireland. Online and free for all.

The Puzzle of Personal Identity
2023-03-11 10:00 - 17:00 | University of Oxford, Rewley House, 1 Wellington Square, Oxford, OX1 2JA
Day course at with the University of Oxford’s Department for Continuing Education, with David Edmonds and me. In person or online.
Suppose I invite you to enter a teletransporter for an exciting adventure in space travel. In this teletransporter a copy will be made of every cell in your body. Whilst your brain and body are destroyed on Earth, a new being, a facsimile, will appear almost instantly on Planet Zog. No need for a tedious journey in a space craft. The recreated person on Planet Zog will look indistinguishable from you, it will have all your memories?
But will it be you?
‘Personal Identity’ is one of the most puzzling areas in philosophy. Many philosophers have grappled with it, from John Locke in the 17th Century to Derek Parfit in the 20th.
To test our intuitions about personal identity, philosophers have come up with weird and wonderful thought experiments. Locke asked us to imagine that a prince and a cobbler swapped souls, so that the memories of the prince were in the body of the cobbler and vice-versa. Parfit asked us to imagine what would happen if a brain was split in two, with the two hemispheres being implanted in two separate bodies.
There’s much at stake; the issue matters. Your position on Personal Identity may affect how you regard the past – should a person be punished for an act that was committed a decade earlier? It may affect how you view the future – should you bother to put money into a pension scheme or splurge everything so as to have fun today? How you view Personal Identity might even affect your attitude to death.

How to think like a philosopher (and when not to)
2023-03-07 19:30 - 21:00 | Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Initution, 16-18 Queen Square, Bath, BA1 2HN, United Kingdom
Standard accounts of philosophical reasoning focus on rules of deductive logic, valid arguments, fallacies and so on. Although these are all important, in this talk Dr Julian Baggini wants to switch the focus to the attitudes and habits of thought advocated by “virtue epistemology”.
He will argue that the formal dimensions of reasoning are less important than the virtues of thought. Furthermore, Julian will argue that at the ways philosophers think can sometimes lead us astray and that there are times when we should not think like philosophers at all.

How To Think Like A Philosopher
2023-02-20 19:00 - 20:45 | St Georges Bristol, Great George Street, Bristol, BS1 5RR, United Kingdom
In this relaxed salon discussion, Philosopher Julian Baggini and guests explore how the exemplary habits and principles of the best philosophers can help us to think better. They will take as their cue Baggini’s new book How to Think Like a Philosopher, in which he offers 12 key principles for a more humane, balanced and rational approach to thinking.
Issues on the agenda include the importance and perils of “questioning everything”, the necessity of taking care with language, the requirement to think widely and with others, and of modesty, self-scrutiny and persistence. Find out why good thinking isn’t just a matter of logical rigour and applying critical thinking tools but requires virtues of character such as the desire for sincerity and accuracy.
‘In an age which fetishizes novelty and innovation, there is a need to relearn the greatest lessons from the past and appreciate that what is timeless is always timely,’ says Baggini.
In the first half, Baggini will be joined by Lisa Bortolotti and Rebecca Buxton to revisit the lessons from the past and discuss the key principles for good thinking. After a short break to grab a drink, the audience will drive the discussion of the second half with their questions and suggestions for topics that need a dose of clarity. Learn how to think like a philosopher in live time! The event will be followed by book signing.

Philosophical Times
2022-12-10 10:30 - 11:30, 2022-11-19 10:30 - 11:30, 2022-10-15 10:30 - 11:30 | St Georges Bristol, Great George Street, Bristol, BS1 5RR, United Kingdom
Join me to explore some of the big ideas that connect with and emerge from this week’s news stories. Sit back and enjoy the live conversation or take part as much as you like – this is always a lively and inspiring discussion. Event is sold out but contact me if you’d like to come.

Truth, Trust and Character
2022-11-12 10:30 - 11:30 | Christ Church Clifton Clifton Down Road Clifton, Bristol, BS8 3BN United Kingdom, United Kingdom
In today’s world truth is disputed, denied, hidden and distorted. The very possibility of objective truth is dismissed, replaced with the idea that things can only be “true for you” or “true for me”. Yet people still go to court or take to streets to defend the truth. Truth still matters, so why can’t we agree on what it is? In this event, philosopher and author of ‘A Short History of Truth’, Julian Baggini will be explaining why truth is so hard to pin down and easy to dispute. He will argue that what we lack is not a philosophical theory of truth but trust in the sources of truth. Can such trust be justified and what is needed to make public servants trustworthy? Baggini will be discussing these questions and more.

Art and the emotions
2022-10-07 18:30 - 19:45 | National Gallery, London
What is ‘euphoria’ and, perhaps more intriguingly, what is it for? On one account it is a sense of perfect harmony, individuality, and purity, accompanied by a feeling of extreme wellbeing that connects us to the heavenly realm. On another, it’s an exquisite dissimulation of the self.
But what does this really mean and how might the paintings in the National Gallery help us understand it and its relevance to our lives today? And how are artists representing euphoria in contemporary work?
Philosopher, journalist and the author of over 20 books Julian Baggini is joined by Joachim Aufderheide, Reader in Philosophy, Kings College London; Vanessa Brassey, co-director of the Centre for Philosophy and Art; Siobhán Jolley, the Ahmanson Fellow in Religion and Art at the National Gallery; and artist Sikelela Owen to debate these questions.

How the Light Gets In Festival
2022-10-01 - 2022-10-02
I’m taking part in four events at this festival.

Sat 10:30: Science vs Philosophy with Marika Taylor and Güneş Taylor
Sat 17:30: Truth, Delusion, and Psychedelic Reality with James Rucker, Anne Katrin Schlag and Mark Salter
Sun 10:30: The Passion of Reason with Tommy Curry, Tamar Gendler and Barry C Smith
Sun 16:00: The Good, the Bad and the Ignored with Tamar Gendler and Peter Singer

Day tickets are also available.

Linda Martín Alcoff: The Return of Cultural Racism
2022-09-30 18:30 - 20:00 | New Academic Building 54 Lincoln’s Inn Fields London WC2A 3LJ, United Kingdom
The last event I am chairing as my tenure as The Royal Institute of Philosophy’s Academic Director comes to an end.
Cultural racism targets not people, but peoples, or forms of life and ways of existing. When biological racism lost credibility after WW2, cultural racism came to the fore as an ostensibly more legitimate ground for discrimination. It is often cloaked in concepts of ‘backwardness’ or the distinction between ‘traditional’ and ‘historical’ cultures, i.e. those that merely repeat versus those that allow innovation. This talk will explore the concept of cultural racism and argue that a renewed attention to this form, as opposed to attitudinal racism, will help us see how racism is working today. It will also help to show why the focus on cultural practices (i.e. the ‘culture wars’) is not peripheral but central to our political discourses.

Café Philosophique
2022-02-06 20:00 - 21:00
The supporter-exclusive online Cafe Philosophique is an hour of conversation on a topic of the attendees’ choice. This time I’m asking for suggested topics in advance so people have a time to gather their thoughts in advance. Become a supporter from £5 a month to receive the link. That’s less than the price of a ticket to similar online events I’ve done!

Is Humanism Global?
2021-11-24 17:00 - 18:00
Speaking at the University of Dundee Chaplaincy series – One People: Many Philosophies.

How to Think Like a Philosopher (and When Not To)
2021-11-16 20:00 - 21:30
Get ready for an information-rich hour. Most introductions to philosophical reasoning take you through principles of logic, argument and common fallacies of reasoning. This one focuses on general procedures and attitudes rather than formal rules.
The four basic elements of good reasoning are captured in the mnemonic AC/DC: Attend, Clarify, Deconstruct, Connect. Everything we cover falls under one of these categories. You’ll see how they work in practice through examples from the great philosophers of history and our age.
The talk will last an hour with an optional further 30 minutes for questions and discussion.

Identity Matters: The 2021 Jane Wynne Willson Lecture
2021-11-10 19:30 - 21:00
Issues of identity loom large in our world today, as a rallying call in fights against oppression and as source of division and conflict. Why does identity matter so much and does it matter too much? In this talk, Julian will set out some of the philosophical foundations of identity. He will explain how misunderstanding the true diverse nature of identity causes myriad problems and demonstrate how a proper understanding of identity can help us to avoid them.

Who do we think we are – and why?
2021-10-07 19:00 - 20:30
“Thought-provoking questions for all of us about notions of personal and communal identity and meanings of borders.”

Philosophical Times
2021-09-25 10:30 - 11:30 | St Georges Bristol, Great George Street, Bristol, BS1 5RR, United Kingdom
Join the writer, thinker and St George’s resident philosopher, Julian Baggini, as he explores some of the big ideas that connect with and emerge from this week’s news stories. Whatever the subject, this regular event is always lively, inspiring and thought-provoking.
You’re welcome to just sit back and enjoy the live conversation, ask questions or take part as much as you like. Just don’t forget your coffee!
We are delighted to offer a limited number of online streaming tickets for this event, for you to enjoy from the comfort of your home
