Philosophy and Life | Lecture by Professor AC Grayling, Tuesday 5th December 2023, Queen Square, Bath

There is a question everyone has to ask and answer – in fact, has to keep on asking and keep on answering. It is ‘How should I live my life?’, meaning ‘What sort of person should I be? What values shall I live by? What shall I aim for?’ The great majority of people do not ask this question, they merely answer it unthinkingly in conventional ways. This is the Socratic Question, challenging us to examine the philosophy of life we live by.

A C Grayling’s Philosophy and Life explores how to answer the Socratic challenge and examines the most important questions that arise in doing so: death, the great inevitable, love, the great desirable, meaning, the great mystery – and the great hope, happiness. What do these concepts mean – really mean? And what difference will exploring them, and other equally important questions, make to one’s life and its choices? Professor A C Grayling, CBE, MA, DPhil (Oxon) FRSL, FRSA Master of the New College of the Humanities, and a Supernumerary Fellow of St Anne’s College, Oxford