HowTheLightGetsIn 2023 festival of ideas and music Hampstead

Philosopher Hilary Lawson, the Kentish Town-based founder of HowTheLightGetsIn, says the eclectic line-up of panels, debates and events in the grounds of Kenwood will range widely across those topics.

And he is looking forward to debating the merits of good and bad with philosophy professor Kathleen Stock. The very inclusion of a speaker with contentious views on gender identity is a marker of how the festival is interested in airing grown-up debates - not dodging them.Ruby Wax is among the speakers at the festival on Hampstead Heath (Image: Steve Ullathorne)

Besides, Stock isn't contributing here to the trans debate, which Lawson says has become "completely toxic".

"We believe in open debate being essential to a vibrant culture. We do have representatives of the different sides of that debate, but we are not debating trans we are talking about the good and bad. Kathleen Stock is a believer in objectivity and truth, she will be arguing that there is objective good, and I think that good is dangerous."

He's keen to add that the brain-stretching talks are leavened by a good dose of music and comedy: "When I go to festivals, I spend most of my time on the dance floor rather than the debate tent."

While the subject of dangers ranges from the 'AI apocalypse' to the 'Pursuit of Peace,' Lawson says they've tried to capture "less obvious" threats than war and robots.The festival takes place in tents in the grounds of Kenwood House (Image: Andre Langlois)

"We are looking for dangers in different areas that we have not really identified; what are the dangers we face economically socially, politically?"

Rationality for example has "been in the dock over the last 10 years".

"There has a been a challenge to the idea that we just need to have a calm, rational approach to things. There are people who would argue that the focus on reason has been a patriachal phenonmen, but is emotion more important? Have we undermined reason and is it actually vital?"

Another debate - perhaps one for BBC news execs - is 'the impartiality illusion' which "questions whether anyone is impartial and should we be suspicious of those who lay claim to it?"

An economics debate focuses on Britain's disappearing productivity: "why are we having such difficulty running an economy that improves the living standards of everyone?"

Even the AI discussion centres less around whether ChatGPT an existential threat to humanity, and more on how the term is "partly a marketing word to sell technology to people."Hampstead resident David Baddiel gives a talk on religion at the festival (Image: Archant)

"The real dangers rather than the fantasy dangers," says Lawson, "Not least that the area is dominated by five or six enormous corporate orgnisations that are driving change and which have a bigger GDP than Britain, Germany, and India put together.  It's very difficult to separate talk about ChatGPT from the interests of those enormous tech companies."

But the festival is keen on rooting philosphy in everyday life, as Lawson says "all the aspects of our personal lives are just as pressing as those that affect society and cuture and science."

"We are trying to bring the ideas which we inevitably rely on in our lives into public conversation," he says. "When I started there was a sense that philosophy was walled into an ivory tower, with people talking about the meaning of words. We take those bigger ideas and make them relevant to our lives. Its said that no self respecting person talks about religion or politics at the dinner table, but those are big issues which are important or worth discussing."Alastair Campbell and podcast mate Rory Stewart will both be sharing their personal life philosophy at the festival (Image: Archant)

He points to featured events on personal life mantras with the likes of Gospel Oak resident Alastair Campbell, ex Tory Minister Rory Stewart, and comic turned author Ruby Wax.

"They have lots to say and philosophies of life that are worth exploring, it's an opportunity to talk to people in a different way or context than they are usually presented - although we are not driven by celebrity but by ideas".

"We don't see philosophy as an academic subject which doesn't impinge on our lives. We take the view that everyone has a philosphy, we have no choice, we are alive, and this business of being alive is a pretty strange, confusing thing."

Buy tickets for HowTheLightGetsIn which runs September 23-24 at Kenwood, Hampstead Heath.