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Report

World Congress of Philosophy

Rick Lewis and Anja Steinbauer report from Athens from one of the biggest philosophy gatherings of all times.

The press in the English-speaking countries rarely cover anything to do with philosophy or intellectual culture unless there is some kind of scandal involved. A few weeks ago it was reported in The New York Times and many other newspapers that the British philosopher Colin McGinn had had to resign his academic position at the University of Miami due to an accusation of sexual harassment. Just a day or two later, around five thousand professional idea-jugglers gathered in Athens for the World Congress of Philosophy. From France and Germany, from the steppes of Russia and the plains of China, Kazakhstan and Bosnia, Peru and Australia, they brought whatever wisdom they possessed to a city in the midst of a profound economic, social and political crisis, to one of the planet’s biggest-ever gatherings of philosophers. They came to take part in well over five hundred individual symposia, lectures and debates on an astonishing variety of philosophical problems.

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