"Error and renaissance” is the theme as How The Light Gets In returns to Kenwood House with its collision of science, politics and culture.

The festival, delayed by the death of the Queen, takes place at the estate at Hampstead Heath on October 1-2.

One of the event's advisors, and leading three sessions, is Professor Barry Smith, director of the Institute of Philosophy, at the School of Advanced Study, University of London, and an Islington resident.

"I think it's a terrific thing that we've got politicians, scientists, journalists, philosophers, artists all mixing together and talking to each other," he says. "They usually don't get a chance to do that - they live in their separate worlds."

He says the joy of the festival is that the discussion does not just take place on stage - conversation continues in green rooms, at meals, and throughout the festival.

Topics range from consciousness to the future of the West, living forever to wealth redistribution, and of course the climate emergency.

“It tends to get threaded through things and the audience who are so switched on and of all ages – they don't let you forget that these are the important issues, and I love that," says Barry.

Philosophy of the Senses

An interactive presentation by Barry will explore the world of the senses.

"For two and a half thousand years philosophers said, since Aristotle really, we've got five senses – touch, taste, sight, smell, hearing – and that's all we've got," he says.

"We now know, from modern neuroscience, that's not quite right. My neuroscience colleagues will tell you we've got as many as 22 or 33 senses, and then the second thing they tell you is they don't work independently of one another. They're always affecting how each other is working.

"What you smell can affect what we feel. There are shampoos with odours that make your hair feel softer.

"If you rub your hands together and they feel quite smooth, but if I give you the noise of crackling as you rub your hands, you feel your hands are dry like parchment."

He adds: “Close your eyes and right now you know where your hands are without having to see them or feel them: that's proprioception. You've also got sense of balance."

He gives the example of food, where our experience is a combination of taste, touch and smell.

"I think it is an illusion that we're we're all subject to: you think you're tasting everything with your tongue, but all the tongue can give you is salt, sweet, sour, bitter, umami. And yet you can taste the difference between strawberries and raspberries...You don't have strawberry receptors in your tongue, or raspberry receptors – that's coming from the nose."

The Passion of Reason

Barry will host a discussion between Julian Baggini, Tommy Curry and Tamar Gendler about the connections between reason and and emotions.

"It was in the 18th century that people thought there was this difference between reason and the passions. David Hume, the great Scot, said 'reason is not only to be the slave of the passions' – we were motivated by passions and reasons were the instrumental way of figuring out what had to happen to satisfy our desires and our needs," he says.

"Aristotle was better on this – the idea that reason was part of the emotions.

"So you can be a 'cognitivist'. You can talk about 'inappropriate anger', you can talk about whether it's a 'reasonable' response to have to something, so that shows you that they were already much more connected."

Beyond Experiment

A debate about the role of the experiment in science will feature Harry Cliff, Tim Maudlin and Marika Taylor.

Barry says the root of the issue is the erroneous conviction that science provides absolute answers answers. Rather, it is about weighing up competing theories.

"It's about getting highly nuanced about how science works. It works at many levels. There's a lot of uncertainty. There's purely theoretical discussion where you don't need to get down to experiments, and even at the level of experiments, the experiments don't settle everything for you. You have still got to do some interpretation."

A priority for science, he says, is to engage the public.

"We need public money to do these things. So we've got an obligation to explain to people why we're doing it, why it's important, and to find out what they want to hear about, what they think."

How The Light Gets In runs from October 1-2 and includes debates, music, comedy and cabaret. Visit howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/london for tickets.