Speaker
,Author
Hilary Lawson
Post-postmodern Philosopher
Hilary Lawson is a post-postmodern philosopher and a renowned critic of philosophical realism. He is best known for his work on reflexivity and his theory of Closure, which puts forward a non-realist metaphysics arguing that we close the openness of the world with our thought and language. Find out more at https://www.hilarylawson.com.

Hilary Lawson is a post-postmodern philosopher and a renowned critic of philosophical realism. He is best known for his work on reflexivity and his theory of Closure, which puts forward a non-realist metaphysics arguing that we close the openness of the world with our thought and language. Find out more at https://www.hilarylawson.com.
Hilary Lawson Videos

What Machines Can't Do
Will computers ever match human intelligence?

Reality vs Theory
In conversation: Priya Natarajan and Hilary Lawson

The Reality Illusion
Has perception evolved to trick us?

Turtles all the way down
In search of the foundations of reality

The Illusion of Sense
Do our senses radically limit our understanding?
Hilary Lawson Articles
More Videos

The Edge of Reality
Where mathematical metaphors meet reality

The Future of the Post-Truth World
Is the era of objective truth over?

Post-Truth and Postmodernism
Is truth just a construct?

Beyond Experience
What is the nature of reality?

After the End of Truth
Is there such a thing as objective truth?

The Strangeness of Things
Are things a necessary foundation of reality?

The Limits of My World
Was philosophy's linguistic turn a mistake?

In the Beginning Was the Word
Is the world dependent on language?

Language and the World
How does language describe the world?

Down the Rabbit Hole
Confronting the limits of perception.

Story Time
Is objective news an illusion?

Limits of Language
Can we find the right words for everything?

After Post-Truth
How do we navigate a world where truth is tribal?

After Relativism
The ways forward from post-modernity

The Stuff of the Universe
Is materialism wrong?

The Secrets of the World
Can we have a complete description of reality?

It's an Immaterial World
Do particles exist?

Pythagoras' Dream
Is reality mathematical?

The Secrets of the Uncanny
What does our sense of the uncanny say about us?

Beyond Knowledge
Is truth an illusion?

Language, Metaphor, and Reality
Methaphors to change the world

Truth, Error & Adventure

Uncovering Reality
Physics, truth and metaphor

The Ultimate Map of Reality
Could a metaphysical revival be on the agenda?

After Postmodernity

Beyond Reality
What are the limits of our understanding?

Facts and Fantasy
Are facts a fiction?

Everywhere and Nowhere
Are binary oppositions real?

The Strangeness of Force
Do forces really exist?

True to Myself
Morality, virtues & consequences

Dangerously Big Ideas
Do we need grand theories?

This Debate Has No Title
Solving the self-referential paradox

God's Map
Charting the universe

Theories, Mysteries and Mistakes
Contradictions in reality

Sensuality and Deception

The Screen Age

Beyond Words
Is meaning a human fantasy?

A Wonder Full World
Is the sublime real?

The Mirror to Nature
The wonder of the wild vs. our imagination

Michael Eavis and the Paradise Hunters

The Ultimate Particle

Irony, Truth and Reality
Confronting the limits of sincerity

Error, Lies and Adventure Part 2

Maps of Mystery
Can art help us catch sight of the ineffable? Or, do we mystify existence at our peril?

Shooting Truth

Rise of the Machines
AI: a science fiction fantasy?

The theory to end all theories
Is a theory of everything possible?

Metaphysics vs consciousness
In conversation: Philip Goff and Hilary Lawson

Reality, fantasy and metaphor
Are scientific metaphors a real description of reality?

Uncovering the universe
Can science really reveal its secrets?

The perception bias
Is bias at the heart of how we see the world?

Beyond time and space
Locking horns over the arrows of time

A world by any other name
Can we crack our relationship to language?

The consciousness test
Is AI sentient?

Postmodernism in the dock
Are we right to abandon objective truth?

The Trouble with Truth
Embracing a radical alternative to reality

The matrix, myths, and metaphysics
Is metaphysics still relevant?

Mind, Maps and Reality
Finding order in our universe

The oldest gods
Should we return to the gods of nature?

Philosophy at war
A battle at the heart of philosophy

A Crack In Everything
Slavoj Žižek debates whether Paradoxes are here to stay

Turtles all the way down
In search of the foundations of reality

The search for certainty
Should we give up the dream of certainty?

Virtue and vice
Is our belief in morality a dangerous fantasy?

Being good and being bad
Morality in the modern world

The unsayable
Can language adequately capture reality?

In Conversation: Iain McGilchrist and Hilary Lawson
Can we make sense of the cosmos?

In search of freedom
Do we choose to follow the rules?

Reality vs Theory
In conversation: Priya Natarajan and Hilary Lawson

Lost in language
Is analytic philosophy's fixation on language holding us back?

Reality after realism
Embracing the death of language

The return of metaphysics
Should we return to grand stories about reality?

Hilary Lawson on Closure

Consciousness and the world
The relationship between experience and reality

The world after reality
Reality is dead

The trouble with language
Does language describe reality?

Memes all the way down
Is Dawkins' concept useful?

Tribal Truths and New Wisdoms
In a 'post-truth' world, what can we believe in?

Necessity and lies
Is it ever right to lie? Is honesty ever wrong?

Belief, hypocrisy and reason
The difference between opinion and truth

The making of reality
An interview with Hilary Lawson

Beyond the reality illusion
Science and the end of the real

New gods and lost rituals
Should religion play a role in modern life?

The AI illusion
What does the future really have in store?

The mystery of emergence
Is complexity a cop-out?

Nothing but the truth
Are all views essentially perspectival?
More Articles

Idealism, panpsychism and science

Antirealism and the analytic-continental split

The new world of metamodernism

Truth isn't correspondence with the facts

Wittgenstein's Tractatus at 100

Science can't state all the facts

The Return of Metaphysics: Hegel vs Kant

The Return of Idealism: Russell vs Hegel

Common sense leads philosophy astray

Derrida and the trouble with metaphysics

Analytic philosophy has a language problem

Consciousness and higher spatial dimensions

The Return of Metaphysics: Russell and Realism

After Metaphysics: Rorty and American Pragmatism

Freedom from nature: the ultimate enslavement

How language distorts reality

Seeing is not perceiving

Wittgenstein was a metaphysician

There is no escaping metaphysics

Why the attempt to bury metaphysics failed

After postmodernism

The possible worlds of Saul Kripke

World Philosophy Day: 13 questions for our century

Most truths cannot be expressed in language

Common sense is not a good guide to reality

Wittgenstein: science can’t tell us about God

Schopenhauer vs Hegel: progress or pessimism?

Spinoza Reborn

Rethinking truth

We can have freedom without the self