About Jules Evans
Jules Evans is a bestselling author and philosopher. His first book, Philosophy for Life and Other Dangerous Situations, explored how people are rediscovering ancient Greek and Roman philosophies and how Greek philosophy (particularly Stoicism) inspired Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and was a Times book of the year. His second book, The Art of Losing Control, explored how people find ecstatic experiences in modern western culture.
He has extensive experience teaching people how to apply philosophy to their lives, having set up the London Philosophy Club and also as an honorary research fellow at the Centre for the History of Emotions, Queen Mary University of London.
He also co-organised the first Stoicon and has taught workshops on well-being, transcendence and flourishing to organisations like Arsenal FC, Netflix and MIND.
Jules Evans
Course Structure
The course consists of five high quality recorded sessions with Jules Evans, with exercises to deepen your experience of the course material. Each session has a high quality workbook alongside with a digest of the key thinkers and ideas and links to extra reading if required.
Click on each session below to find out more about it.
Schedule
Session 1 - Identity Politics and Authenticity
We begin by looking at the genesis of our search for the real me and a collective We. We'll explore the thought of St Paul, Augustine and the Christian search for the true self. We'll see how this evolved in Romanticism, starting with Rousseau. From there, we'll look to the civil rights movements and modern identity politics.
Session 2 - Rights, Free Speech & Cancel Culture
In our second session we'll look at Liberalism versus tradition, including Tom Paine, Mary Wollstonecraft and Edmund Burke. We'll examine the thought of John Stuart Mill and the arguments for and against free speech. And we'll ask: is cancel culture about accountability or a vindictive search for scapegoats?
Session 3 - The Religion of Wellness
This session we'll look at the concept of Eudaimonia in ancient Greek philosophy, and how it helped to inspire the modern politics of well-being. We'll track the rise of therapy culture, and the triumph of ‘wellness’. Can we develop a post-GDP society dedicated to well-being rather than just material progress?
Session 4 - Truth, Myth & Conspirituality
Why are conspiracy theories so enticing right now? Can we find a balance between our need for myths and the capacity for critical thinking? Here we'll see how the enlightenment challenged superstition in the name of rationality, and how the Romantic counter-enlightenment criticized the supremacy of rationality. We'll link this to Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell and the modern search for myths, and ultimately explore the concepts of re-enchantment and conspirituality.
Session 5 - Nature, Existential Risk and Transhumanism
In our final session, we'll look at whether we should try and fix the Earth, or strive to become a multiplanetary species? Should we harmonize with nature or master it with technology? In this final session, we'll look at how Romanticism made a cult of nature. We'll study Malthus, Darwin and the rise of ecological thinking and track this directly to current conversations around existential risk and modern techno-utopianism.