Bristol Festival of Ideas - 3 December

Talking about The Ego Trick at 6:30 pm. Details here. On the same day, I'm chairing Susan Greenfield's talk about her book on self identity.

The Shrink & The Sage: High standards

Striving for the impossible will drive you mad unless you remember that it is indeed impossible. Kid yourself you can really do it and you are condemning yourself to a life of dissatisfaction. The problem with most perfectionists is not that they strive to be perfect, it’s that they believe they can be.

Latest FT Weekend Magazine column (26/27 November)

Heathen's Progress 9: The empty common ground

"I'm sorry Julian, you seem to be working hard to establish a middle ground that nobody wants to occupy." I'm finding it hard to disagree with this comment by DiscoveredJoys on last week's post about what reasonable religious belief could look like today. But since the main purpose of posting my articles of 21st-century faith was to find out just how many could support them, the project is not worthless if we find out the answer is hardly anyone at all.

Latest in the Guardian Comment is Free Belief series

What matters in survival - Oxford, 24 November

Technologies that extend and enhance life could change what it means to be a person. Does this matter and if so why? Which changes should we embrace and which should we shun? Talk to the Oxford Transhumanists at 7pm, Seminar Room 3, Balliol College, Broad Street. More details here on their Facebook page or just turn up.

Heathen's Progress 8: Articles of 21st-century faith

I want to see just how many people really do embrace the kind of religious faith that explicitly rejects the kinds of things atheist critics think silly. To do this I've formulated four "articles of 21st-century faith": beliefs that I think would make religion entirely intellectually respectable, even to the hardest-nosed atheists. They are neither so vague that anyone could put their name to them, nor so specific that people who are broadly sympathetic should feel unable to do so. They are brief and minimalist, stating clearly and concisely only as much as needs to be stated to establish the legitimacy of superstition-free belief.

Latest in the Guardian Comment is Free Belief series

The Forum - BBC World Service

I was a guest on a programme about how we make judgements alongside Nobel Prize winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman and economist Ngaire Woods. The programme is available here as an MP3 download indefinitely. First broadcast Sat 19 November.

Interview in Expansión

"Los políticos no mienten más en campaña electoral... pero dicen muchas más medias verdades." [Politicians don;t lie more during elction campaigns, but they say many more half-truths.]

Interview in Expansión

Heathen's Progress 7: True religion

Although we might not be clear enough about what we ourselves believe, we are frequently all too clear about what others believe. People may accept there are lots of views out there, but they are very confident they know what the genuine version of any given belief looks like, which is usually how the speaker wants it to look.

Latest in the Guardian's Comment is Free Belief series.

The Shrink & The Sage: Character

I wonder if the reader who sent in this question [Is character destiny?] realised just how richly ambiguous her three little words are? First of all, is the suggestion that character is fixed, or that the course of future events is fixed by character? These are two different things: we might possess set characters yet be free to choose between different, open futures; or we may be free to shape our own characters, but in doing so determine our course through life.

Latest FT Weekend Magazine column

Is there a real you?

Video of my TEDx Youth talk on "Is there a real you?"

The Lust for Certainty

Do we suffer from a lust for certainty? This is an edited version of a talk given to a Sea of Faith Network conference in London earlier this year.

Heathen's Progress 6: "You just don't understand"

"Too often I find that faith is mysterious only selectively. Believers constantly attribute all sorts of qualities to their gods and have a list of doctrines as long as your arm. It is only when the questions get tough that, suddenly, their God disappears in a puff of mystery. Ineffability becomes a kind of invisibility cloak, only worn when there is a need to get out of a bit of philosophical bother."

Latest in the Guardian's Comment is Free belief series

What's so great about humanity? Oxford, 9 November

Talking to Oxford Brookes at 6pm. Details here.

microphilosophy@foyles - John Bradshaw, 8 November

In conversation with John Bradshaw Christine Nicol about Bradshaw's recent acclaimed book, In Defence of Dogs at 6:30. Bradshaw stands up for dogdom: not the caricature of the wolf in a dog suit, ready to dominate its unsuspecting owner at the first sign of weakness, not the trophy animal that collects rosettes and kudos for its breeder, but the real dog, the pet that just wants to be one of the family and enjoy life.
This Festival of Ideas event is part of a regular series of live discussions with Julian Baggini recorded at Foyles for the microphilosophy podcast series. Full details here

The Shrink & The Sage: Work

When Epicurus wrote “Any philosopher’s argument which does not therapeutically treat human suffering is worthless”, he showed that even the very wise sometimes say foolish things. The purpose of all serious intellectual inquiry is surely to enable us to see things more truthfully, whether that soothes or disturbs us.

Latest FT Weekend magazine column.

Heathen's Progress 5: The lust for uncertainty

It's high time we realised that adopting a moderate position in the God debate is not the same as adopting a non-judgmental one in which uncertainty becomes the new object of veneration.

Latest in the Guardian's Comment is Free belief series

Philosophy, Science & Religion - Bristol, 1 November

With Dr Sheikh Ramzy and Professor David Colquhoun for "an evening examining the ways in which we look at our world and seek understanding". Organised by the University of Bristol's Atheist, Agnostic, and Secular Society, at 7pm. Full details here.