Society at a Crossroads

Society is at a crossroads. The importance of asking questions to understand where we’ve been, why we’re here, and where we’re going, has never felt more pressing. Philosophical thought sits at the center of this quest for answers. Professors Amartya Sen (Economics and Philosophy, Harvard) and Akeel Bilgrami (Philosophy, Columbia) will consider the nature of philosophy in the past and present, its relation to the social sciences and humanities, and its role in public and private life, both material and spiritual.

Presented in partnership with Gotham Philosophical Society.

A book signing of Collective Choice and Social Welfare by Amartya Sen and Secularism, Identity, and Enchantment by Akeel Bilgrami will follow the program.

About the speakers

Amartya Sen is a Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard University. Until 2004 he was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. He has served as President of the American Economic Association, the Indian Economic Association, the International Economic Association, and the Econometric Society. His awards include Bharat Ratna (India); Commandeur de la Legion d’Honneur (France); the National Humanities Medal (USA); Honorary Companion of Honour (UK); Ordem do Merito Cientifico (Brazil); the Aztec Eagle (Mexico), and the Nobel Prize in Economics. Sen’s books, on economics, philosophy, decision theory, and social inequalities, have been translated into more than thirty languages.

Akeel Bilgrami received a BA in English literature from Elphinstone College, Bombay University, and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, where he read philosophy, politics, and economics. He has a PhD in philosophy from the University of Chicago and is currently a Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University, where he is also a professor on the committee on global thought. He was the director of the Humanities Center at Columbia University for seven years and is now the director of its South Asian Institute. His publications include the books Belief and Meaning (1992), Self-Knowledge and Resentment (2006), and Secularism, Identity, and Enchantment (2014). He is due to publish two short books in the near future: What Is a Muslim? and Gandhi’s Integrity. His long-term work is on the relations between agency, value, and practical reason.