Contemplating questions about life and how to live it, the Socratic challenge invites us to examine the philosophies we live by. ‘What sort of person should I be’ ‘What values shall I live by’ ‘What shall I aim for?’.

Having spent a lifetime thinking and writing about these great questions, eminent Professor A.C. Grayling’s latest work Philosophy and Life offers an insightful exploration of what philosophy can tell us about life and how to live it.

“… a philosophy of life has to be a product of one’s own agency, a philosophy that is one’s own so that one’s life is one’s own: something to be chosen and lived.”

Join Professor A.C. Grayling as he traverses love, death, grief, ageing, friendship, and art in the quest to understand what matters.

Philosophy and Life incorporates the lives and writing of an immensely eclectic range of thinkers taking in not only philosophers such as Confucius, Seneca, and Nietzsche, but also giants such as Shakespeare, Freud, and George Eliot and modern thinkers such as Martha Nussbaum and Simon May.

This illuminating evening with globally renowned philosopher, Professor A.C. Grayling, known for his profound insights into literature, philosophy, and the arts is not to be missed.

“… I believe as strongly now as I ever did that Socrates’ question is the most important anyone can be asked to answer.”

Professor A.C. Grayling CBE MA DPhil (Oxon) FRSA FRSL is the Principal of Northeastern University 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 several 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 Humanists UK, Patron of the Defence Humanists, Honorary Associate of the Secular Society, and a Patron of Dignity in Dying.

Presented by QPAC.
Recorded at QPAC’s Concert Hall for Digital Stage.