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’The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or his nation, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the co-operation or consent of his deliberate reason. To such a man, the world tends to become definite, finite, obvious; common objects rouse no questions, and unfamiliar possibilities are contemptuously rejected…Philosophy, though unable to tell us with certainty what is the true answer to the doubts which it raises, is able to suggest many possibilities which enlarge our thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom.’ Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy

As the tenth Battle of Ideas festival draws to a close, how should we confront the problems of the next decade? Our era often seems to be characterised by an explosion of knowledge. It is not just that the internet offers seemingly infinite amounts of information and data; more profoundly, the sciences, physical and social, claim to have more answers to the fundamental questions of being human than ever before. What is love? An evolutionary strategy. Free will? A story we tell ourselves. If, as some claim, even morality is an evolutionary adaptation and neuroscience can explain its workings, can scientists determine what is right and wrong, making ethics redundant? Neuroscientist Sam Harris believes scientific facts trump value judgements, while the revered physicist Stephen Hawking has proclaimed ‘philosophy is dead’ and ‘scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge’.

Can the subjective, the uncertain, and intuition now be dispensed with? Some critics see philosophy as more like a spiritual quest for transcendence than a serious academic discipline. Even in academic institutions, a philosophical approach can be written off as pointlessly self-indulgent. And philosophy can be its own worst enemy: academic philosophy can seem to wallow in wilful obscurantism, while pop-philosophers market their insights as therapeutic self-help manuals, more navel-gazing than profound. Overall, philosophers can seem stuck, still asking the same questions Plato asked 2,400 years ago. So has philosophy indeed passed its sell-by date?

What of deeper truth beyond scientific accounts that can tell us what is, but never why it is? It is one thing to know the empirical facts; but dare we dispense with a deeper spirit of enquiry, a commitment to making sense of human experience to help us judge what truly matters for human flourishing? Over a hundred years ago, Max Weber wrote of the disenchantment of a rationalised, bureaucratic world. Might philosophy find new purpose in offering an antidote to sterile utilitarianism? Of course, philosophical thinking can be risky, upsetting established ideas and norms; as Hannah Arendt noted, ‘thinking itself is dangerous’. But perhaps philosophy is required more than ever today: the challenges of the next 10 years will surely not be overcome without a belief in the human capacity to interpret as well as describe the world. And without that, what hope can we have to change it?