Uploaded October 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Audio recording of a 2016 lecture by the philosopher and cultural theorist Kwame Anthony Appiah on culture as part of his Reith Lectures on Mistaken Identities. He says the idea of "Western civilization" or "Western culture" is a mistaken one and that we should abandon it. He uncovers the history of the idea from its roots at the time of the Crusades to its modern incarnation in the second half of the 20th century. However, we have very little culturally in common with our forebears in say the England of Chaucer's time. And indeed, much of the knowledge supposedly at the heart of Western civilisation was actually transmitted via Islamic scholarship. No one, he argues, can claim exclusive ownership of culture.
This lecture was given by Kwame Anthony Appiah at New York University in 2016 as part of his Reith Lectures on Mistaken Identities.
00:00 Talk
29:45 Q&A
#philosophy #politicaltheory #socialphilosophy #culturalcritique
Audio recording of a 2016 lecture by the philosopher and cultural theorist Kwame Anthony Appiah on culture as part of his Reith Lectures on Mistaken Identities. He says the idea of "Western civilization" or "Western culture" is a mistaken one and that we should abandon it. He uncovers the history of the idea from its roots at the time of the Crusades to its modern incarnation in the second half of the 20th century. However, we have very little culturally in common with our forebears in say the England of Chaucer's time. And indeed, much of the knowledge supposedly at the heart of Western civilisation was actually transmitted via Islamic scholarship. No one, he argues, can claim exclusive ownership of culture.
This lecture was given by Kwame Anthony Appiah at New York University in 2016 as part of his Reith Lectures on Mistaken Identities.
00:00 Talk
29:45 Q&A
#philosophy #politicaltheory #socialphilosophy #culturalcritique
