John Gray

Leading philosopher Professor John Gray looks at the importance of atheism in the modern world and highlights its inadequacies and contradictions.

Gray describes a world of atheist tradition that is, in many ways, as rich and complex as religions. He regards it as a mistake to see atheism and religions as opposites. He sheds light on what it means to be human and on the thinkers who have battled to understand this issue.

Gray retired as professor of European thought at the London school of Economics in 2008. He is an atheist and political philosopher with an expertise in analytic philosophy and the history of ideas. He contributes to the Guardian, Times Literary Supplement and New Statesman. He is also author of Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals, in which he argued that the humanist belief in human difference was an illusion.