What can philosophy teach us about power, wealth, science, and emotion?
Posted on: 25 January 2026
What can philosophy teach us about power, wealth, science, and emotion?
Trinity’s popular Philosophy Today series returns for 2026 with six public lectures asking how philosophy can help us make sense of today’s world. From the ethics of wealth to the politics of emotion and the mysteries of memory, the series explores what it means to live, work, and think in a rapidly changing society.
Professor John Divers, Head of the Department of Philosophy, said: “Philosophy Today has become an important space for public discussion in Trinity. It offers people the chance to think through familiar issues from fresh angles and to see how philosophy remains vital to understanding the world around us.”
Dates: Thursdays, starting 29 January 2026 (every second Thursday)
Time: 7pm - 8.30pm
Location: JM Synge Theatre, Arts Building, TCD
Format: Each lecture will feature a 50-minute presentation followed by an interactive Q&A session.
Fee: €85 for the full series (concession rate: €40 for students, OAPs, unemployed, groups of 20+, TCD staff, and graduates)
Booking: See here for more information and booking details.
Speaker Line-Up:
Thursday, 29 January 2026 | Dr Pablo Magaña Fernández: Levelling the Boardroom? The Philosophy (and Economics) of Workplace Democracy
Why can we vote for our leaders, but not our bosses? Politicians and managers both wield power over our lives, yet only one group faces elections. Should workplaces be more democratic? Pablo Magaña Fernández considers what workplace democracy could look like and why it matters.
Thursday, 12 February 2026 | Dr Ashley Shaw: Subjects of Desire
What is desire, and how does it move us? From hunger and wanting to love and longing, our desires drive so much of what we do. Ashley Shaw explores how thinkers have tried to understand the power of desire and what it reveals about the complex relationship between reason and feeling.
Thursday, 26 February 2026 | Professor Tom Farrell: A Completed Science: More Than a Dream?
Can science ever explain everything, even the mind? From atoms to galaxies, scientific progress has transformed our understanding of the world. Tom Farrell examines the hope and the limits of science, asking whether the dream of a complete, materialist explanation of everything is within reach or an illusion.
Thursday, 12 March 2026 | Professor Kenneth Silver: How Rich is Too Rich?
Can someone have too much money? Philosopher Kenneth Silver explores the idea of Limitarianism, the view that there is a moral limit to how rich anyone should be. How might extreme wealth affect fairness, democracy, and social trust? And what, if anything, should we do about it?
Thursday, 26 March 2026 | Dr Rossella De Bernardi: The Ethics and Politics of Emotion Norms
Should there be rules for what we feel? From “no need to get angry” to “show more confidence,” we constantly encounter social rules about emotion. Rossella De Bernardi explores how these norms shape inequality and why they carry deep moral and political significance.
Thursday, 9 April 2026 | Dr Julian Bacharach: Memory: Link to the Past, or Mental Construction?
Can we trust our memories, or are they just stories we tell ourselves? Psychology and neuroscience reveal how memories are stitched together from fragments, shaped by bias, and prone to error. Julian Bacharach argues that rather than a crisis, this shows how memory binds us together through shared experience.
Media Contact:
Fiona Tyrrell | Media Relations | tyrrellf@tcd.ie | +353 1 896 3551
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