Philosopher's Zone

There has never been as much art around as there is today - digital tools are incredibly cheap, artistic production and distribution can bypass the traditional institutional gatekeepers of galleries, museums and curated spaces. And yet, there's a sense today in which art is devalued currency, and the potential for art to bring people together is being eroded. This week we're talking art, politics and what we lose when we stop loving culture.

The question of identity, and whether each of us is best understood as an individual or a member of a collective, has vexed philosophers for centuries. This week we're getting into it with a thinker who's also a leading light in the teaching of philosophy in schools.

Of course, education has a point - but establishing exactly what that point is, can be a surprisingly difficult task. Do we educate children in order to foster autonomy and independent thinking, or to teach respect for certain norms, values and hierarchies? Is education about creative thinking and developing curiosity about the world, or is it about getting ready for the job market? Plenty of tension to explore this week, in a panel discussion on the aims of education.

Living and writing through the years before, during and after the Second World War, French author and philosopher Albert Camus witnessed the rise of fascism and its terrible endgame in German National Socialism. Today, amid fears of a neo-fascist resurgence in the USA, his work well is worth revisiting.

For decades, primatologists believed that primate societies were structured around aggressive alpha males - until a remarkable push from feminist scientists in the 1960s and 70s changed the narrative. So why does the "dominant alpha male" story persist in human culture?