For politicians and journalists, church leaders and chief executives, errors are something to be covered up, ignored or denied. But is this a mistake? Could it be that errors are the source of our inspiration and of future advances - the very stuff of adventure?

Director of the Einstein Forum Susan Neiman, SDP founder and former leader David Owen, and TS Eliot prize-winning poet and musician Don Paterson seek adventure in error.

Psychologist Nicholas Humphrey argues belief in the soul has been the main driver of human evolution for a hundred thousand years.

"As elegant, and hypnotic, as cool jazz stacked on a record player" New York Times

From bittersweet opening melodies through to electronic euphoria, join us for our explosive opening party.

This ticket gives you access to all the live sessions throughout the evening for a night to remember with: Utah Saints, Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly, Nick Mulvey, Alessi's Ark, Electric Swing Circus, The Beau Bow Belles, HotDoc: The Music of the Brain, Nish Kumar is a Comedian, Aisling Bea, The Late Night Debate and Mums Old Vinyl.

Festival Live ticket holders have access to this event.

Feminism has been focused on equal status for women. But does this limit the horizon? With girls outperforming boys in education and with little social requirement for physical strength, is there a case for a matriarchal culture? Or would this be regressive for society and for feminism itself?  

Katie Derham invites former Osborne chief of staff Matthew Hancock, eminent American feminist Carol Gilligan and Radical feminist Finn McKay to dispute the merits of matriarchy.

If a scientific theory throws up errors, we dump it or change it. At least that's the idea. But is the reality very different? Should we accept that our truths and errors are dependent on our models and paradigms, or would this bring scientific progress to a halt?

Author of How the Laws of Physics Lie Nancy Cartwright, sociologist Steve Fuller and Cambridge psychologist Nicholas Humphrey weigh up error and certainty.

Since World War II, history has focused on the plight of the victim, and banished talk of heroism. Is this an error, with catastrophic consequences for our sense of moral responsibility? Hotfoot from the Einstein Forum in Germany, philosopher Susan Neiman argues that we must once again take ownership over how the world works, rather than simply allowing ourselves to be determined by it.

'Fresh and exhilarating' Guardian

Explorers have lost their appeal, tarred with the brush of colonialism and exploitation. Space travel is unfunded and unloved. Have we made a mistake?  Should we regain our sense of adventure and seek new challenges, or is this a male fantasy best consigned to the dustbin of imperial history?

"The thinking man's explorer" (Times) Pen Hadow and record-breaking filmmaker Belinda Kirk go in search of adventure with poet and musician Don Paterson.

Language has been the focus of philosophical enquiry for the last century. But was the 'linguistic turn' a wrong turn, leading to a barren discipline without 'real world' influence? Is it time for a fresh approach to the big issues, or would this be a capitulation to intellectual fantasy?

One of the world's most influential analytics philosophers, John Searle, live from Berkeley, joins post-postmodernist Hilary Lawson and Cambridge logician Michael Potter to wage the ultimate war of words.

A night of marvels as Ameican, English and Welsh talents collide in a packed schedule of music, comedy, films and magic.

This ticket gives you access to all the live sessions throughout the evening. Be captivated by: Jeffrey Lewis and the Peter Stampfel Band, The Melodic, Sweet Baboo, Thom Tuck, John Robins, Ian Smith, Man Like Me, Keiron the Mighty, Phildel, Orlando Seale and the Swell, Kizzy Crawford, HotDoc: Order and Disorder, The Late Night Debate and DJ James Welsh!

Festival Live ticket holders have access to this event.

Although still the largest trading bloc, Europe's growth and influence trails behind the rest of the world. Is there a European future that puts it on a new growth curve and back on top economically and culturally? Or is this undesirable -  with a greater adventure to be found in the  pursuit of the good life?

Outspoken Conservative MP Bill Cash, Brown's Minister for Europe Chris Bryant and LSE Director of the Civil Society and Human Security Research Unit Mary Kaldor uncover Europe's fate.

The West is pursuing a moral crusade against drugs.  But is this hypocritical while continuing to export its drugs of choice, alcohol and tobacco, to the world?  Should we follow the lead of Washington and Colorado and allow the free trading of drugs or, more radically perhaps, criminalise alcohol and tobacco?

Live from Guanajuato, former President of Mexico, Vicente Fox, President of PEN International John Ralston Saul, and former Minister for Europe Chris Bryant confront the West’s relationship with drugs.                                       

A history of dance music in all its forms, thrown into the crowd with high-speed MC lyrics of love, lust and loss: The Correspondents are back. Consistently ranked in the Telegraph's top ten Glastonbury moments, the flamboyantly dressed duo are both relentlessly fun and brilliant in their ability to merge electro, jazz, hip hop and pretty much anything else into one big knees-up.  
 
"Utterly compelling" theartsdesk

Festival Live and Monday Night Mayhem ticket holders have access to this event.

The Full Mid Week Pass gives you unlimited access to all sessions at the festival during the Mid Week period (10:00am Tuesday to 7.30pm Friday) - Philosophy Sessions, Live and Night Sessions, comedy nights, film screenings and parties.

A total of no fewer than 110 events, including debates and talks featuring bestselling author Lou Marinoff, Guardian columnist Suzanne Moore the spectacularly delicate Richard Walters, euphoric, superbly talented folk artist Emily Barker, "maverick physical comedian" (Guardian) Ben Target, weirdly wonderful The Hut People, unconventionally sassy comedian Iszi Lawrence, exceptionally gifted comic Will Franken, Sensational singer-songwriter Ana Silvera, and many many more.

Click here to view our fantastic midweek lineup.

We believe we are responsible for the environment, but should we see humans as  part of nature? Would a spiritual understanding of humanity's place in the natural world be an ecological asset or a throwback to pantheistic superstition?

Sinologist Martin Palmer, environmentist Karl Wagner and Islamic ecologist Fazlun Khalid investigate our bond with nature.

In association with the Club of Rome-ARC ValuesQuest.

After the bank holiday madness enjoy an evening of comedy, beauty and meancholic musings.

This ticket gives you access to all the live sessions throughout the evening. Be entranced by: Emily Barker and the Red Clay Halo, Southgate & Leigh, Richard Walters, Jessie and the Brackish Breeze, Daniel Simonsen, Ben Target, HotDocs: God's Business and The Price of Kings.

Festival Live ticket holders have access to this event.

Woody Allen famously quipped that he didn't want to achieve immortality through his work but through not dying. Yet most artists still aspire to create monuments that will outlive them. But should we embrace the ephemeral, trivial and delightful rather than works of towering ambition?

International sculptor Sokari Douglas Camp, philosopher and BBC New Generation Thinker Timothy Secret and art correspondent and broadcaster Godfrey Barker embrace the now.

In association with the SHM Foundation.

From John Milton to the Chapman Brothers, artists and poets have delighted in visions of Hell, whilst Heaven is often nowhere to be seen. Does this mean we have lost our way? Should we seek secular visions of heaven or abandon these remanants of medieval superstition?

Film directors Charles Sturridge and Sally El Hosaini, leading anthropologist Henrietta Moore, and Somerset Maugham Prize-winner Marcel Theroux imagine heaven and hell.

A spectacular spectrum of enchanted songs, side-splitting laughter and vibrant live acts, from folk to rockabilly.

This ticket gives you access to all the live sessions throughout the evening. Go on a journey with: Monster Ceildh Band, Roving Crows, JP, The Hut People, Iszi Lawrence, Will Franken, HotDocs: Gaugin: the Full Story and The End of Aging as well as DJ Cedric Maison.

Festival Live ticket holders have access to this event.

The nomad is often seen as a romantic relic of a vanished way of life. But is this a fundamental misconception? Should we seek to protect and extend the possibility of a nomadic lifestyle, and place it at the heart of our culture? Or is the intellectual nomad a mascot of disarray and confusion?

Postmodern critic Martin McQuillan, novelist Marcel Theroux, and philosopher Jonathan Rée embark on a permanent voyage into the unknown.

From our mating habits to our territorial disputes, sociobiologists claim that natural selection explains human nature. But is this real insight or a reductionist pseudoscience? Should we seek broader, deeper answers to social questions, or will genetics soon be able to give a complete account of what it means to be human?

Bestselling author of Plato Not Prozac Lou Marinoff, paleontologist Richard Corfield and Oxford neuroscientist Nayef Al-Rodhan challenge the science of human nature.

Sensational singer-songwriter Ana Silvera has worked with the ENO, performed at the Roundhouse with Imogen Heap, and collaborated with an Estonian choir on the 'song cycle’ Oracle. Her songs are epic and intimate, mythic tales told with tender insight and wry, seductive tones.

 "A songsmith whose music simply aches beauty" Time Out

Festival Live and Thursday Extravaganza ticket holders have access to this event.

In everyday life, and in science, we assume that effect follows cause. But could this most basic of beliefs be mistaken? In the 'block universe' postulated by theoretical physics, there is no before and after. Is the arrow of time an illusion and causality a fiction, or is the science simply wrong?

Israeli quantum physicist Lev Vaidman, South African cosmologist George Ellis and UK philosopher of physics James Ladyman investigate causality.

From the size of an electron's charge to the cosmological constant, the universe appears to be mysteriously fine-tuned to support life. Can dark matter or infinite parallel universes explain why the world exists, or are such questions fundamentally insoluble?

Templeton Prize-winning cosmologist George Ellis, theoretical physicist Laura Mersini-Houghton and Oxford philosopher David Wallace dispute the origins of existence.

An evening of euphoric dance, innovative experimental tunes and the best stand-up and club-smashing blinders.

This ticket gives you access to all the live sessions throughout the evening. Be spellbound by Andrew Weatherall, Catriona Knox, Marques Toliver, Baka Beyond, Sam Lee, Waylayers, Moulettes, Gabby Young Trio, Joyce the Librarian, Mark Stephenson, Mike Wozniak, David Trent, The Late Night Debate and HotDoc: All in the Best Possible Taste.

Festival Live ticket holders have access to this event.

The universe is infinite, or so we believe. But might it be a mistake to apply the mathematical concept of infinity to the universe? Would it be more helpful to see infinity as an ineffable notion, or should we accept that mathematics rules?   

Inflationary cosmologist Laura Mersini-Houghton from Carolina joins theoretical physicist Julian Barbour and award-winning mathematician Peter Cameron to make sense of the infinite.

Paradoxes of self-reference are found in mathematics, art  and philosophy from the Greeks to Derrida. But Bertrand Russell thought he had solved them. Was he wrong? Might these paradoxes in fact hold the key to a deeper truth, and even to the universe itself? Or is this all a storm in a logician's teacup?

Philosopher and author of Reflexivity Hilary Lawson, postmodern literary critic Patricia Waugh and Cambridge mathematician Peter Cameron engage in a paradoxical debate.

Join us for a monster final night party of surreal comedy, transcendent songs, Balkan jazz-folk and the most danceable bands in the world.

This ticket gives you access to all the live sessions throughout the evening. Abandon yourself to: Sheelanagig, Woodpecker Wooliams, Stealing Sheep, Joe Volk, Abigail Wyles, Miss Maud's Folly, Chloe Foy, Angela Barnes, Ivo Graham, Tom Rosenthal, Pat Cahill, The Late Night Debate, HotDoc: The Enigma of Nick Jones and Deepgroove.

Festival Live ticket holders have access to this event.

We assume doing things to excess is a mistake.  But could it in fact be essential? Should we see excess as the key to achievement, brilliance and creativity, and modesty as the source of dullness and repetition?  Or is this a charter for misery, madness and misadventure?

Journalist and classicist Mark Vernon,  philosopher of mind, language and wine Barry C. Smith and broadcaster Edie Lush take the road of excess.

World leaders at Davos were abuzz with talk of an online education 'tsunami' than could spell the end of the university campus. If this were true, might it be for the best?  Should we look forward to free expert knowledge for all online, or is education about more than mere information?

FutureLearn CEO Simon Nelson, LSE political theorist Maurice Fraser, and Lithuanian politician and historian of ideas Leonidas Donskis envisage a revolution in education.

Romantic love is often seen as the ultimate goal of a relationship, without which sexuality would be a wild and empty animalistic tendency. Is this an error? Might it be time to give up on love and unleash an unrestricted human sexuality, or would this mean throwing away our most treasured gift?

Philosopher and commentator Mark Vernon, author of the Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl Brooke Magnanti, and founder of Coco De Mer Sam Roddick challenge the limits of sexuality.