The lecture, titled “Liberalism, Populism and the Sense of Reality,” will explore the enduring legacy of liberalism in light of today’s political challenges. Drawing inspiration from Isaiah Berlin’s seminal essay The Sense of Reality, Professor Gray will examine the tensions between liberal ideals and contemporary populist movements, offering a thought-provoking analysis rooted in both historical tradition and modern political dilemmas.
About the Speaker:John Gray is Emeritus Professor of European Thought at the London School of Economics and formerly a Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford, Professor of Politics at Oxford. Visiting Professor at Harvard, Yale and lecturer at the Autonomous University of Madrid. He is the author of Mill on Liberty: a Defence (1983 and 2013), Hayek on Liberty (1984, 1998 and 2013), Isaiah Berlin: an interpretation of his thought (1995 and 2013), Post-liberalism: studies in political thought (1996), False Dawn: the Delusions of Global Capitalism (1998, 2009 and 2015), Two Faces of Liberalism ( 2000), Straw Dogs: thoughts on humans and other animals( 2002 and 2023), Al Qaeda and What It Means to be Modern (2003 and 2007), Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia ( 2007), Gray‘s Anatomy: Selected Writings ( 2009 and 2016), The Immortalization Commission: Science and the Strange Quest to Cheat Death ( 2011), The Silence of Animals: on progress and other modern myths (2013), The Soul of the Marionette: a short inquiry into human freedom ( 2016), Seven Types of Atheism (2018), Feline Philosophy: Cats and the meaning of Life (2021), The New Leviathans ( 2023) and other books. He retired from academic life in 2007 and since then has been an independent writer.
Facilitated by:
Lord John Alderdice, President of Honour of Liberal International and President of the National Liberal Club. Leader of the Alliance Party from 1987 to 1998, he played a key role in negotiating the 1998 Good Friday Agreement and served as the first Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly. Since 1996, he has sat as Liberal Democrat in the House of Lords speaking on international affairs. He also has academic positions at Oxford and Cambridge universities and is the UK Trade Envoy to Azerbaijan and Central Asia.
