Conjecture Institute Conference
Defend the West
An online conference hosted by Conjecture Institute on the ideas that built the modern West — reason, free inquiry, individual rights and open markets — and on what it takes to defend them.
Date
Wednesday, January 13, 2027
Times to be confirmed
Format
Online
Zoom livestream
Speakers
7
Confirmed so far
Reserve your spot
Leave your email and we'll send you a calendar invite now, plus the Zoom link and the full programme as soon as they're set.
Participants are welcome to join for the full conference or drop in for selected talks.
Attendee questions welcome.
About
The inheritance of the Western project is being questioned from many directions at once. This conference brings together philosophers, economists, scientists and writers to ask which parts of that inheritance are worth defending, why Western institutions foster progress better than any alternatives ever created by man, and what we can do to ensure that the West continues to serve as a beacon of progress and prosperity for ages to come.
Programme
The running order and talk titles are still being finalised. We'll publish the full programme here, and email it to everyone who has signed up.
Speakers
Confirmed so far. More to be announced.
David Friedman
Economist, legal scholar and author of The Machinery of Freedom, the classic statement of the case for a society ordered by private law rather than by the state.
Steven Pinker
Cognitive psychologist and Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, and one of the most widely read defenders of Enlightenment ideals.
Stephen Hicks
Professor of Philosophy at Rockford University and author of Explaining Postmodernism, a genealogy of the intellectual movement he traces from Kant through Nietzsche and Heidegger to the contemporary academy.
Yaron Brook
Chairman of the board of the Ayn Rand Institute and host of The Yaron Brook Show, where he has argued the case for reason, egoism and capitalism for over a decade.
Alana Newhouse
Founder and editor-in-chief of Tablet, the magazine of Jewish news, ideas and culture, which she launched in 2009 and has edited since.
Johan Norberg
Swedish historian of ideas and senior fellow at the Cato Institute, whose books chart how open societies made the modern world rich and why they keep coming under attack.
Michael Shermer
Founding publisher of Skeptic magazine, host of The Michael Shermer Show, and for eighteen years a monthly columnist for Scientific American.
Speaker portraits via Wikimedia Commons: David Friedman — Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0; Steven Pinker — Christopher Michel, CC BY-SA 4.0; Stephen Hicks — Howardcorn33, CC BY-SA 4.0; Yaron Brook — Newsdocumenting, CC BY-SA 4.0; Alana Newhouse — Jewish Funders Network, CC BY 3.0; Johan Norberg — Jesper Sandström, CC BY 2.0; Michael Shermer — Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Event page by Edwindoit