Editorial: Head to Head

From the dialogues of Socrates to Marxist dialectics, our knowledge has always been shaped through opposition. That’s why debate underpins what we do at the Institute of Art and Ideas: from our annual philosophy and music festival HowTheLightGetsIn to our video debates on IAI TV. Now we highlight our new feature format for IAI News: the Head to Head.   First up is a head to head from two combatants in the IAI TV debate After the End of Truth. On one side one of the world’s most influential analytic philosophers, John Searle, defends realism and philosophy’s classical values: objectivity and truth. On the other, philosopher and director of the IAI, Hilary Lawson, argues that realism has failed and an independent reality is a fantasy.  Then we have a battle between philosophy and science. The UK’s most brilliant moral philosopher Mary Midgley launches the debate by arguing that science does not have all the answers. In response, Oxford chemist Peter Atkins contends that, ultimately, sci...