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What’s the problem with introversion?

Introversion is to engagement as digestion is to ingestion. We need to feed our minds with good ideas and accurate information, and that requires an attentiveness to the world and others incompatible with pathological navel-gazing. But having done so, none of that helps us to grow mentally unless we can chew it over, digest what is nutritious and expel the waste.

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A Heathen Manifesto

This manifesto is an attempt to point towards the next phase of atheism’s involvement in public discourse. It is not a list of doctrines that people are asked to sign up to but a set of suggestions to provide a focus for debate and discussion. Nor is it an attempt to accurately describe what all [...]

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• BRISTOL FESTIVAL OF IDEAS - 13 MAY Why Isn’t Old Philosophy Just History? with Natalie Haynes and Nigel Warburton. We’re constantly told to look at the wisdom of the old philosophers. But shouldn’t they now be consigned to history? At the Watershed, 16:00. Full details and booking here. #
• THE GUARDIAN'S BIG IDEAS PODCAST. Written about 380BC, Plato's Republic is still our blueprint for thinking about the relationship between justice and the state. But who exactly is the "philosopher king" that Plato envisages? Did he really advocate infanticide? And who will "guard the guardians"? In the latest episode of The Big Ideas, Benjamen Walker talks Plato with philosophers Mark Kingwell, Mark Vernon, Julian Baggini and Guardian writer Charlotte Higgins. Listen or download here. #
• THE SHRINK AND THE SAGE; BOOK NOW OUT. Read all about it here. #
• PHILOSOPHY & EDUCATION CONFERENCE - RUGBY SCHOOL, 8 MAY Speaking at a conference on 'The Philosophical Dimension of Learning'. Full details at this link. #
• MIDORI HOUSE, MONOCLE 24 - 27 April. I was on this programme last Friday talking about The Shrink and The Sage. You can listen to it or download here. The item is 40 minutes in. #