Eröffnungsvortrag: Markus Gabriel

Our liberal democracy is currently facing a variety of challenges. Markus Gabriel, one of Germany's best-known philosophers and professor at the University of Bonn, nevertheless believes that "moral progress in dark times" is possible. He advocates a "new enlightenment" and understands democracy to mean not just the interplay of complicated bureaucratic procedures, but the joint struggle for solutions that everyone can agree on, taking into account a universally valid set of values. In his opening lecture, Markus Gabriel examines the foundations and conditions of our democratic coexistence. He reflects on art and culture as a space in which ambiguities are endured and weighed up and moral judgment is practised in a playful way.