"Every human being, in a way, is a philosopher. Because that's what it is to be human."
Hilary Lawson is a philosopher, renowned critic of philosophical realism, and editorial director of the Institute of Art and Ideas. His main work, Closure: A Story of Everything, has been described as ‘the first non-realist metaphysics’. His early work made the case that twentieth-century philosophy was centrally concerned with the paradoxes of self-reference. Closure can be seen as an attempt to resolve these paradoxes and at the same time to provide an account of language that doesn't require reference to an external reality. In doing so, it outlines a metaphysics which abandons the traditional relationship between language and the world in favour of a vocabulary of closure and openness. The theory has dramatic consequences for how we understand ourselves and the world, and the role of both science and religion.
"Lawson shows himself to be a latter-day 'metaphysician' on the grand scale ... a quite astonishing achievement." Alan Montefiore, University of Oxford