Iain McGilchrist and Charles Eisenstein in conversation – Being in the World Today

Thursday, 4 June, 2026, 5.00-6.30pm (UK time)
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At the recent meeting in Oxford on The Good, The Beautiful, and The True, Iain spoke about being in the world – how to be in the world – as the essential role of education, and what he had learned from his inspiring teachers. Many participants were concerned about what they should do after returning home from the conference, but equally important is how we should be (while managing our inner state) in relation to the challenges we face both individually and collectively. He argued that fundamental values are intrinsic rather than instrumental, and that our capacity to embody these values constitutes who we essentially are. He also reminded us that the word truth is related to ‘treu’, being true to oneself, and loyal to others.

So how do we orient ourselves in this respect? Iain and Charles will discuss how they themselves are responding to the personal and collective challenges we all face with a sense of agency and centredness – rather than succumbing to passivity and hopelessness. They will also explore how we can navigate a world of progressive ‘enshittfication’, cultivating both our inner life and a corresponding outer engagement in the world. We all have to ask: what is ours to do?

Dr Iain McGilchrist is a psychiatrist, neuroscience researcher, philosopher and literary scholar. He is a Quondam Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, an Associate Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford, a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and former Consultant Psychiatrist and Clinical Director at the Bethlem Royal & Maudsley Hospital, London. He has been a Research Fellow in neuroimaging at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore and a Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Studies in Stellenbosch. He has published original articles and research papers in a wide range of publications on topics in literature, philosophy, medicine and psychiatry. He is the author of a number of books, but is best-known for The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World (Yale 2009). In November 2021 his two-volume work The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World was published by Perspectiva Press.

www.channelmcgilchrist.com

Charles Eisenstein is an essayist, public speaker, and the author of numerous books including The More Beautiful World our Hearts Know is Possible. His work spans many domains: technology, money, politics, ecology, consciousness, and philosophy, guided by the overarching theme of a transition in civilization’s defining mythology.

https://charleseisenstein.substack.com/