2024 has been an unforgettable year at the IAI, packed with bold ideas and groundbreaking debates. From unravelling the mysteries of consciousness and quantum mechanics to investigating the relationship between language and reality, feminist ethics, the nature of evil, and the West’s uncertain future, we’ve tackled the biggest questions in philosophy, science and global politics. Across our festivals, in the pages of IAI News, and in our Academy courses, we’ve challenged convention and offered fresh perspectives on a rapidly changing world. The twelve articles, debates, talks and courses below stand out for their urgency and relevance because they move the debate on, charting a path through an increasingly complex and dangerous future.

(1) Mind, matter and everything: Can consciousness be solved by science?

A debate between Sean Carroll, Ellen Langer and Tamar Gendler, hosted by Jack Symes.

In a 2020 survey of philosophers, more than half thought that materialism describes the human mind. But we don’t yet have a physical explanation of a single state of consciousness, never mind the entire mind, and there are deep problems for the materialist approach. Even Richard Dawkins said that scientists “are no more equipped to deal with consciousness than anyone else.” This debate between Sean Carroll, Ellen Langer and Tamar Gendler – leaders in their respective fields of physics, psychology and philosophy – was a fascinating journey into this issue. Do we need to accept that material stuff is a radically different sort of thing than thought and consciousness? Or can materialism pull the rabbit from the hat and be extended to account for thought and experience?

(2) “Biology Beyond Genes: Rethinking Evolution,” a talk by Denis Noble.

Denis Noble, Professor Emeritus of Biology at Oxford University, is one of the pioneers of systems biology, and is renowned for challenging conventional thinking. In this talk, he takes on the popular idea that our genes make us who we are. This gets things the wrong way round, Noble argues. Instead, organisms create their own destinies using their genes.

(3) “Consciousness Came Before Life,” by Stuart Hameroff, Anirban Bandyopadhyay and Dante Lauretta.

Most scientists believe that consciousness came after life, as a product of evolution. But Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff’s quantum theory of consciousness suggests that consciousness may have been what made evolution and life possible in the first place. In this eye-opening article, Hameroff and his collaborators describe observations of material from outer space which may support this revolutionary idea. 

(4) Redrawing the global order: Will the BRICS surpass the West?

A debate between Bill Browder, Yuan Yang and Sergei Guriev, hosted by Sasha Polakow-Suransky

The West has become accustomed to economic supremacy. But its dominance is in decline and perhaps already over. In 2023, the GDP of the BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa – for the first time overtook the Western G7 economies. Furthermore, the BRICS are cementing ties and coordinating policy. None sanctioned Russia over Ukraine and instead increased trade. They’ve also formed the New Development Bank which some fear will undermine the dollar and the global economy.

Will the BRICS redraw the global order and herald a new era of power block conflict? Or is the new world order overdone and the challenge of the BRICS just what is needed for the West to rediscover belief in its values and culture?

(5) “Hegel vs Heidegger: Can we uncover reality?” by Robert Pippin.

For most of its history, Western philosophy tried to use pure reason to know reality. In this article, Robert Pippin, a renowned authority on the philosophy of Hegel, turns to Heidegger to show that this entire philosophical tradition was doomed, due to its mistaken assumption that what it is to be a feature of reality is to be available to rational thought.

This assumption, Pippin argues, led philosophy to forget the meaningfulness of reality for humans, and so left us lost. Only by recognizing that we encounter reality not primarily through reason, but through the ways in which it matters for us, can philosophy recover the world as something meaningful for humans.

(6) “New Theory of Gravity Solves Accelerating Universe,” by Claudia de Rham.

There’s a massive mystery at the heart of physics. Our universe is expanding at an accelerating rate, but Einstein’s theory of General Relativity and our knowledge of particle physics predict that this shouldn’t be happening. Most cosmologists pin their hopes on mysterious and elusive Dark Energy to solve this problem. But Claudia de Rham’s pathbreaking work, which she explains in this article, suggests that Einstein’s theory of gravity is simply incorrect over cosmic scales. Her new theory of Massive Gravity limits gravity’s force, explains why acceleration is happening, and eliminates the need for Dark Energy.

(7) “How moral laws fail feminism,” an interview with Carol Gilligan.

Carol Gilligan is a feminist icon, and the mind behind the revolutionary “ethics of care” theory. In this in-depth interview, she delves into the biggest studies she conducted throughout her decades-long career as a psychologist – the very same studies with which she shook-up and upended the patriarchal frameworks of the discipline itself. In her pivotal 1980s book In a Different Voice and her most recent work In a Human Voice, she explains how the voices of men and women are not fundamentally different; rather, they differ because they are gendered by the structures which aim to cover and silence them, in order to preserve power.

(8) The mystery of emergence : Is complexity a cop-out?

A debate between Suchitra Sebastian, Phillip Goff and Hilary Lawson, hosted by Jack Symes.

From free will to consciousness, and even life itself, it has become commonplace for philosophers and scientists to explain some of the most puzzling phenomena in the universe as “emergent.” Some even claim that nothing in science makes sense without emergence, the idea that the characteristics and behaviour of the whole is different from, and in addition to, its parts. But critics argue that the notion of emergence gives the impression of understanding when in reality it explains nothing.

Can we explain emergence and account for how an overall property occurs when it is not present in the elemental parts? Might a new science of emergence enable breakthroughs in our understanding of life, consciousness and physical properties like superconductivity? Or is emergence a rhetorical device used to give the misleading impression that materialism is capable of explaining the deepest mysteries?

(9) “The Devil In All of Us,” a talk by Paul Bloom.

Paul Bloom, Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto, is a trailblazing psychologist, bestselling author and spellbinding speaker, as this talk shows. Many of us have had the experience of an urge to do something wrong just for the hell of it – from walking on grass we’re told to keep off to fantasies of violence towards someone we find a minor annoyance. Bloom invites us to see the clever, creative and beautiful side of our impulses toward evil.

(10) “Heaven in Disorder,” an IAI Academy course, by Slavoj Žižek.

In an age of war, pandemic and climate crisis, it’s little surprise that global politics is increasingly revolutionary and dangerous. But what is provoking our modern crises, and why do solutions seem so far beyond our reach? In this IAI Academy course, the philosopher and cultural critic Slavoj Žižek offers penetrating insights into the role of ideologies, including liberalism, in our era of crisis, and offers insight into the potential opportunities it presents.

(11) A rule to live by: Is it time to abandon the Golden Rule?

A debate between Peter Singer, Daniel Markovits and Carol Gilligan, hosted by Myriam François.

“Treat others as you would wish to be treated” is a central principle found in many cultures and all major religions. Known as the Golden Rule, it is widely seen as the cornerstone of morality. Yet some argue the Golden Rule is wrong and damaging. It imposes our values, desires and outlook on those with different experiences and goals. The extrovert may wish to be the centre of attention but it does not mean they should impose this on a shy neighbour. Furthermore, studies show that in clinical settings, Golden Rule-thinking leads to inaccurate judgements with important consequences for medical policy.

Should we abandon the Golden Rule as dangerously narrow? Should we seek to empathise with perspectives different from our own and treat others as they would wish to be treated? Or is this a shift that risks losing our moral compass, and the Golden Rule as an essential universal law? Join Peter Singer, one of the world’s foremost moral philosophers, Carol Gilligan, a celebrated feminist theorist, and Daniel Markovits, a legal scholar famous for his work on meritocracy, as they debate these urgent questions.

(12) Singles, sex and society: Is marriage finally obsolete?

A debate between Yasmin Benoit, Edward Davies and Aline Laurent-Mayard, hosted by Güneş Taylor.

We assume that one of the primary aims in life is to find a lifelong partner – a story embedded in our novels, films and culture. But a fundamental and largely unrecognised change is taking place. The number of singles in the UK has risen sevenfold in the last fifty years and now accounts for more than 40% of the population with a majority of those choosing to be single. Some argue this is a dangerous trend that is influencing the global fall in birth rate and potentially threatens society as a whole. They argue the ubiquity of sex toys, used in the US and UK by 70% of women, and pornography, used by 90% of men, have made sex with a partner less important.

Should we act to contain the growth in the numbers choosing to be single? Do we need to encourage long-term partnership by making sex less available without a partner? Or is this demographic shift to be wholeheartedly welcomed as a sign of improving personal lives, and a limiting of excessive population growth? Join Güneş Taylor, as she debates these questions with Yasmin Benoit, an asexual activist, model and writer, Edward Davies, the Policy Director of the Centre of Social Justice, and Aline Laurent-Mayard, a journalist, author and podcast host.