The Middle Way Society – Details, episodes & analysis

Our guest today is Jamie Bristow, who is a writer and policy expert working at the intersection of inner and outer transformation and sustainability.

For eight years, he was Director of the Mindfulness Initiative and clerk to the UK’s All-Party Parliamentary Group on Mindfulness. In 2023, he joined the Inner Development Goals team to lead on public narrative & policy development.

He’s here to talk to us today about a Middle Way approach to the climate crisis

Our guest today is Chris Rose. Chris is the Director of Amos Trust, a small creative human rights organisation which has three main areas of work: promoting Palestinian rights, creating opportunities for girls and young women on the streets and calling for climate justice. Chris has travelled extensively to Amos partner projects and led many trips and activities with them, such as home rebuilding, cycling and marathons trips in Palestine. He cofounded the Street Child World Cup in South Africa in 2010 and led Amos’ Just Walk from London to Jerusalem in 2017. Prior to this he was CEO of Romsey Mill a highly innovative youth project in Cambridge. He is an ordained Anglican Minister and he’s here to talk to us today about the Amos project.

In this week's podcast, the chair of the Middle Way Society, Robert M Ellis talks to us about his most recent book 'The Thought of Sangharakshita: A Critical Assessment'.

Evan Thompson, Professor of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, is an expert in the fields of cognitive science, philosophy of mind, phenomenology, and cross-cultural philosophy, especially Buddhist philosophy in dialogue with Western philosophy and science. He co-wrote the ground-breaking The Embodied Mind with Francisco Varela and Eleanor Rosch, which was the arguably the first book to explore the relationship between Buddhist Philosophy and cognitive science. He’s also the author of Colour Vision and Mind in Life. He’s here to talk to us today about his latest book ‘Waking, Dreaming,  Being: Self and Consciousness in Neuroscience, Meditation, and Philosophy’ and how it might relate to the Middle Way.

We are joined by the renowned developmental psychologist and philosopher Alison Gopnik. As a leader in the field of children’s learning and development, she’s a proponent of the idea that children’s minds can help us get to grips with some of the most fundamental philosophical questions. She’s an authority on the theory of mind and also put forward the ‘theory theory’ which suggests that babies and young children learn about the world in a scientific way. She’ll be talking today about her book ‘The Philosophical Baby: What Children’s Minds tell us about truth, love and the meaning of life’ and how this might relate to the Middle Way

We are joined today by Rod King, the founder and campaign director of ‘Twenty’s Plenty for us’ a movement set up to campaign for a default 20 mile speed limit in the UK. He’s going to talk about its rationale, the effect that it has had, the challenges it faces, how he sees it progressing and how this all might relate to the Middle Way.

Rupert Sheldrake is a biologist and research scientist and the author of more than 80 technical papers and numerous books. He’s perhaps most well known for his book ‘The Science Delusion’ and his morphic resonance hypothesis. These will be the topics of the discussion today as well as exploring the idea of science as an integrative practice.

Philip Kitcher is the John Dewey Professor of Philosophy at the University of Columbia. He’s the first recipient of the American Philosophical Association’s Prometheus Prize for his work to expand the frontiers of science and philosophy. He’s written many books including ‘Philosophy of Science: A new introduction’, ‘Preludes to Pragmatism’ and ‘The Ethical Project’. His latest book is ‘Life after Faith: The Case for Secular Humanism’ and that will be the topic of the conversation today.

Lynne Franks was the founder of one of the UK’s best-known PR consultancies in the 1970’s. She has in recent years focused her attention on women’s issues especially in regard to women’s empowerment and sustainability and this is the topic of our discussion.

The philosopher Julian Baggini talks to us about his latest book 'The Virtues of the Table‘, how our relationship with food and drink is a great way to explore what it means to be human and how to try to live conscientiously.