The Visionaries: Arendt, Beauvoir, Rand, and Weil in 2025

Introduction by Wolfram Eilenberger 

“The Visionaries: Arendt, Beauvoir, Rand, Weil in 2025”

What happens when the most brilliant female minds of the 20th century step into our turbulent present?

In this thought experiment, I bring together four radically different philosophers—Hannah Arendt, Simone de Beauvoir, Ayn Rand, and Simone Weil—to confront the defining questions of our time. These women lived through war, exile, revolution, and resistance. They did not just write philosophy; they lived it, breathed it, fought for it.

Today, as we face new crises—digital domination, political emptiness, ethical drift—I ask: What would they say to us now?

Across five urgent conversations, they wrestle with freedom and surveillance, feminism’s future, the moral collapse of politics, the paradox of suffering in comfort, and the role of philosophy itself. Their disagreements are sharp. Their voices are fierce. But at the heart of their debate is a shared truth:

To think is to resist. To question is to hope. To speak is to begin.

Let us listen. Let us learn.

(Note: This is an imaginary conversation, a creative exploration of an idea, and not a real speech or event.)

Topic 1: Freedom vs. Responsibility in the Age of AI and Surveillance

Moderator: Wolfram Eilenberger
Participants: Hannah Arendt, Simone de Beauvoir, Ayn Rand, Simone Weil

Wolfram Eilenberger:
In 2025, nearly every click, step, and word is tracked—by corporations, governments, even our own devices. So, let’s begin with this:
What does “freedom” mean today, in a world where surveillance is normalized and predictive algorithms influence our choices?

Ayn Rand:
Freedom is the sovereignty of the individual’s mind. If people allow AI to make their decisions, then they’re surrendering voluntarily—not to machines, but to mediocrity. Technology doesn’t enslave us; evasion of thought does. You’re not tracked because of surveillance—you’re tracked because you refuse to assert your independence. If you know who you are and what you want, no algorithm can touch that.

Simone de Beauvoir:
That’s an elegant dodge, Ayn, but too optimistic. The existential subject must forge herself through action, yes—but the structures shaping her are invisible and oppressive. Algorithms don't just observe; they shape desire. Freedom today is the constant struggle to discern which of your thoughts are yours and which were manufactured. Authenticity now requires resistance at the level of perception.

Hannah Arendt:
Freedom has always existed in the space between—between people, in public discourse, in action that can begin something new. But we’ve traded that space for isolated scrolling and endless data streams. What’s terrifying is not surveillance alone—it’s that people no longer care that they are being watched. When public life becomes irrelevant, freedom dies not by force, but by forgetfulness.

Simone Weil:
I see freedom differently. To be truly free is not to assert one's will, but to be stripped of all illusion and open oneself to truth. Surveillance is not the enemy—it is a mirror. It reveals our profound attachment to ego. The soul becomes free when it no longer seeks to control or be seen, but only to obey the good, even in silence.

Wolfram:
Thank you. Now I wonder:
In a world where responsibility is often outsourced—to AI, to institutions, to the “collective”—what does personal responsibility really look like today?

Beauvoir:
Responsibility begins where excuses end. Even if the world is unjustly programmed, I am still a being who acts. The challenge now is that many people mistake responsibility for performance—they curate images of activism without consequence. But the authentic person must confront the absurd, then choose—with full knowledge that their choice may be flawed, but it is theirs alone.

Arendt:
Responsibility is the obligation to think—really think—before acting. Bureaucrats in totalitarian regimes claimed they were “just following orders.” Today, people hide behind data, behind systems, behind trends. But no system absolves you of judgment. Each time you retweet, automate, or comply without reflection, you abdicate your humanity. Responsibility in 2025 is an act of moral imagination.

Rand:
Responsibility is not a burden—it is the joy of being competent. A free person takes ownership of their values, their work, and their results. If you outsource decisions to AI, you deserve the mediocrity you get. Stop blaming systems. A responsible life is one built on conscious, rational action. Anything less is cowardice masked as caution.

Weil:
Responsibility is not ownership—it is attention. To attend fully to the suffering of another, to the truth of a situation, even when it destroys your comfort—that is the highest form of responsibility. In a world that worships efficiency and control, responsibility means standing still long enough to see what is invisible.

Wolfram:
Striking perspectives. Now for our last question:
Can there be genuine moral or political freedom without first confronting the hidden forces—economic, algorithmic, psychological—that shape our choices?

Weil:
No. Freedom without truth is illusion. If your thoughts are shaped by fear, envy, or desire for approval, you are not free. And if those emotions are manipulated by algorithms, then you must wage a silent war—not to assert yourself louder, but to purify the soul through attention, detachment, and love. Freedom is interior first.

Rand:
You’re romanticizing slavery. Algorithms and economics are tools—what matters is whether you use them or are used by them. Don’t pretend you’re a victim of the digital age when you have a choice. The essence of freedom is clarity. Know your values. Then act accordingly. You don’t need to dismantle systems—you need to rise above them.

Beauvoir:
I agree with neither of you completely. The truth is, we are shaped and shaping at the same time. We live in a feedback loop. Freedom today demands awareness not only of external structures but of one’s complicity in them. The fight is not just against oppression—it’s against the seduction of comfort and false choices.

Arendt:
Freedom depends on thinking and acting together. It can’t survive in isolation. Yes, we must confront the hidden systems, but not through conspiracy or despair. We need spaces—real or virtual—where plurality thrives, where debate matters, where beginning anew is still possible. Otherwise, we risk becoming spectators to our own degradation.

Wolfram Eilenberger (Final Thoughts):
What an extraordinary exchange. You’ve each brought timeless insight to a profoundly modern dilemma. As we stand at the crossroads of technological power and personal agency, perhaps the question is not whether freedom survives—but whether we have the courage to practice it, together, in the face of everything urging us to forget.

Topic 2: The Future of Feminism — Empowerment or Entrapment?

Moderator: Wolfram Eilenberger
Participants: Hannah Arendt, Simone de Beauvoir, Ayn Rand, Simone Weil

Wolfram Eilenberger:
We live in a world where feminism is mainstream—on billboards, in corporate boardrooms, even weaponized in politics. Yet many women feel more anxious, burnt out, and unseen than ever.
So let’s begin with this: Has modern feminism truly liberated women—or merely rebranded their constraints?

Simone de Beauvoir:
It’s both. Women have more formal power now, yes, but the myth of femininity remains intact—only now, it demands you be both powerful and pleasing. Freedom means transcending the roles we’re assigned. But in today’s world, those roles have multiplied, not vanished. Women are now expected to excel in every sphere while still being beautiful, maternal, ambitious, and accommodating. That’s not liberation. That’s exhaustion with lipstick.

Ayn Rand:
Liberation is not something given—it’s taken. Modern feminism often teaches women to demand from others rather than to achieve for themselves. True empowerment is a woman who builds, thinks, creates—not one who begs for equity. The moment you define yourself as oppressed, you’ve surrendered your power. I never waited for permission to rise. Neither should you.

Simone Weil:
Liberation must begin in the soul. Modern feminism speaks of rights, but rarely of obligations or grace. To be free is to forget oneself—not to assert the ego, but to align with truth. Women do not become free by imitating men or seizing power structures, but by purifying their attention. The world entraps us because we are addicted to recognition. Real freedom lies in self-emptying.

Hannah Arendt:
Feminism, when it becomes identity politics, risks closing rather than opening public space. The goal should not be “women’s power,” but a more human politics altogether—one where action and speech are possible without the weight of labels. We have gained rights, yes. But have we gained spaces of freedom where women can appear and act without being reduced to symbols? That’s still in question.

Wolfram:
Thank you. Now, let’s go deeper.
In a world where gender is both fluid and hyper-visible, how do women today navigate authenticity without falling into performative identities?

Arendt:
Authenticity arises in action, not in self-display. The danger now is that we live as if we’re always being watched—as if life is a performance for social media or ideological approval. Real identity emerges when we appear in public through deeds, not declarations. And yet, many confuse confession with freedom, forgetting that privacy is also a right worth defending.

Weil:
To be authentic is to become invisible to the ego. I fear that in our time, people confuse exposure with truth. But the soul does not need to be seen to be real. Women—and men—must learn to seek the eternal, not the fashionable. Gender, performance, identity… they are all noise when divorced from the Good. Authenticity is not a pose—it is a silence in which God can speak.

Rand:
This is absurd. Identity isn’t a performance—it’s a product of volition. You are what you choose. If a woman wants to project her values through her style, ambition, or sexuality, that is her right. The key is whether she owns her choices—or is simply reacting to trends. Authenticity comes from clarity and pride in one’s values, not from hiding or appeasing others.

Beauvoir:
But many women still don’t know where their choices come from. We are raised in mirrors—reflecting others' desires, not our own. Authenticity means a constant process of interrogation. Who am I becoming, and for whom? Gender today is plural and shifting, yes—but that does not mean it’s free. We are more visible than ever, but also more trapped in the gaze of others.

Wolfram:
Let’s end with this final thought:
What must the next evolution of feminism include to avoid becoming either a branding tool or a battleground?

Rand:
It must return to the individual. No more collective guilt, no more victimhood narratives. Feminism should celebrate the woman who chooses to build a business, raise a child, or live alone—on her terms. The next step is not louder protest, but greater personal excellence. Teach women to think, produce, and flourish. That is power.

Beauvoir:
It must also confront class, race, and economic injustice. Without that, feminism becomes elitist. But beyond intersectionality, we need a feminism that teaches becoming—that freedom is not a state but a process. Women must be free to change, to contradict themselves, to err. Let us build a feminism that welcomes imperfection and complexity.

Arendt:
We must preserve the public realm—where people appear not as victims or representatives, but as citizens. Feminism must defend this space fiercely, especially in the digital age. It must also guard against dogma. The moment ideology silences debate, freedom dies. The feminism of the future must prize plurality over purity.

Weil:
The future lies in attention. We must teach girls to see the suffering of others, not just assert their own needs. A feminism that does not serve the afflicted, the invisible, and the voiceless is hollow. It must lead not only to rights, but to compassion. Not empowerment, but truth.

Wolfram Eilenberger (Final Thoughts):
You’ve each touched on something profound. Feminism in 2025 is at a crossroads: it can harden into spectacle or soften into substance. It can chase power or seek grace. Perhaps, in listening to one another—across difference, across time—we take the first step toward the kind of liberation that cannot be commodified.

Topic 3: Power and Moral Truth — Can Ethics Survive in Politics?

Moderator: Wolfram Eilenberger
Participants: Hannah Arendt, Simone de Beauvoir, Ayn Rand, Simone Weil

Wolfram Eilenberger:
Politics today seems ruled by expediency, spectacle, and outrage. Moral truths—when invoked—often feel more like weapons than guiding principles.
So let’s begin with this: Can moral integrity genuinely survive in political life—or is compromise the price of influence?

Hannah Arendt:
Power and morality are not inherently opposed—but they rarely coexist for long. Political life requires action, and action brings consequences, ambiguity, and unintended effects. What destroys moral integrity is not compromise itself, but when compromise becomes habit—when people stop thinking, stop judging. The tragedy of our time is that political actors often act without thought—without the pause of conscience.

Ayn Rand:
Let’s be clear: morality in politics can survive, but only if grounded in objective reason. The problem is altruism—this poisonous idea that sacrifice is noble. That’s what corrupts politics. A moral politician is one who defends individual rights, property, and reason—not who panders to the mob or dies on the altar of consensus. Compromise? Only if it does not violate core principles. Otherwise, walk away.

Simone Weil:
To speak of morality and politics is to speak of two orders—one divine, one fallen. The soul that enters politics must already be crucified, empty of ego and hunger for power. Otherwise, it will rot. Ethics does not survive in politics through strategy, but through attention to the afflicted, the voiceless. Only in silence and self-emptying can moral clarity endure in the face of force.

Simone de Beauvoir:
We must remember that ethics is forged in the ambiguity of living. Moral purity is seductive, but often paralyzing. Political life demands choice amid contradiction. The key is to stay conscious—to resist bad faith. Morality survives not in perfection, but in the courage to act with awareness, to fail, to learn, to try again. No ethical system survives politics if it does not acknowledge complexity.

Wolfram:
That leads us perfectly into our next question:
What is the role of truth in modern politics—when 'narrative' often triumphs over fact, and power seems built on perception rather than principle?

Rand:
Truth is reality, not opinion. The moment politics becomes about narrative, it abandons reason. Today’s politicians sell feelings, not facts. They are second-handers—feeding on consensus and cowardice. The only antidote is to return to reason and individual judgment. A moral politician speaks truth even when it’s unpopular. Especially then.

Weil:
But truth is not simply fact. It is sacred. And it is fragile. In politics, the temptation is always to distort truth for the sake of results. But the soul is damaged by every such distortion. The danger is not just lies—but the numbing of our capacity to see truth. When politics becomes theater, truth disappears behind the mask. Only through silence, attention, and love can we reclaim it.

Arendt:
Truth in politics is precarious because it threatens power. Lies bind tyrannies together. But factual truth—what actually happened—has a quiet, stubborn force. The task of citizens is not just to vote, but to remember. Memory is resistance. In a world of spin, the one who insists on facts becomes dangerous. That’s why truth-tellers are always marginalized—or martyred.

Beauvoir:
We must not forget how much truth is entangled with power. Whose truth? Who decides? Yet we cannot give up the pursuit. Politics without truth becomes manipulation. But truth without empathy becomes violence. The challenge is to hold both—fidelity to fact, and compassion for the fractured humanity behind every political stance. It’s a delicate dance, not a weapon.

Wolfram:
Beautifully said. For our final question:
What must change in political culture to make space for ethical courage again—not as performance, but as a real force?

Beauvoir:
We must educate people to live with ambiguity—to accept that choices are rarely pure, that freedom involves risk. Politicians should not be rewarded for certainty, but for self-reflection. Let us honor the one who doubts, who listens, who changes. Ethical courage begins with the willingness to not know and still act.

Arendt:
We must restore public spaces—literal and metaphorical—where truth and speech matter. Ethical courage arises not in isolation, but in dialogue. Citizens must demand more from leaders—but also from themselves. The courage to think is the beginning of all politics worthy of the name.

Rand:
We don’t need a new political culture—we need to abandon the rotten one. Stop rewarding victimhood. Stop punishing excellence. Ethical courage is the refusal to bend. Teach people to stand alone if needed, to love their independence more than the applause. If you want virtue in politics, start by refusing to lie to yourself.

Weil:
The political culture must embrace humility. Power intoxicates the soul. We need leaders who are capable of disappearing, who seek not glory, but justice. We need citizens who recognize that love—not ambition—is the true source of strength. Ethical courage means to act without reward, to speak even when unheard, to love even in defeat.

Wolfram Eilenberger (Final Thoughts):
What we’ve heard today are four radically different answers to the same burning question: can power serve good? Arendt calls for remembrance and speech. Beauvoir calls for awareness in action. Rand calls for uncompromising reason. Weil calls for spiritual surrender.
In their tension lies hope—perhaps even the roadmap we desperately need. For politics without ethics is power without purpose, and history has shown us what that leads to.

Topic 4: Meaning and Suffering in a Prosperous World

Moderator: Wolfram Eilenberger
Participants: Hannah Arendt, Simone de Beauvoir, Ayn Rand, Simone Weil

Wolfram Eilenberger:
We live in an age of abundance: food, information, convenience. Yet rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide rise year after year.
Why, in such materially prosperous times, do people still suffer so deeply—and what does this suffering mean?

Simone Weil:
Because the soul is starving. We have everything—except contact with the eternal. Prosperity distracts us from affliction, but it cannot cure it. True suffering comes not from hunger or pain, but from meaninglessness—when the soul is exiled from purpose. Our world numbs us with comfort but leaves us spiritually abandoned.

Ayn Rand:
Suffering today is not due to abundance—but to evasion. People avoid responsibility, ambition, and hard thinking. They expect life to be easy and feel betrayed when it’s not. Prosperity does not destroy meaning—lack of self-esteem does. A person who builds, creates, and lives by their own values will not feel lost. If you're suffering in a prosperous world, it's time to grow up.

Simone de Beauvoir:
You miss the point, Ayn. Suffering isn’t weakness—it’s woven into the human condition. Even in comfort, we feel the terror of freedom, the burden of choice. Prosperity hides existential anguish, but it doesn’t resolve it. We still must ask: Who am I? Why am I here? Comfort gives us more time to face the abyss. And some, understandably, recoil.

Hannah Arendt:
What troubles me is the loneliness. Not solitude—but isolation. Prosperity has atomized us. Machines serve us, but do not see us. Social media connects us, but does not bind us. Without meaningful action in public life, without appearing among others, people drift into despair—not from suffering itself, but from the lack of witnessed existence.

Wolfram:
Thank you. Let me ask this next:
How should we respond to suffering in a world that increasingly seeks to eliminate it—through technology, medication, or denial?

Rand:
You don’t respond to suffering—you overcome it. That’s what strength means. Suffering is not sacred—it’s a signal that something is wrong. Fix it. If technology or medication can help, use them. But don’t wallow in pain and call it profound. Growth is the goal. Not endurance. Not pity. Triumph.

Weil:
No. Suffering is sacred because it humbles the self. The impulse to eliminate it is understandable—but dangerous. Some affliction cannot be fixed—it must be endured, understood, and offered. It is in suffering that we become fully human, fully receptive. To reject suffering entirely is to reject compassion, and thus, truth.

Arendt:
We must distinguish types of suffering. To flee all pain is cowardice. But to glorify it is equally dangerous. What’s needed is courage—not just to endure, but to act despite pain. In modern society, we’ve medicalized every discomfort. But some suffering points beyond itself—it demands political or moral transformation. That we must not numb.

Beauvoir:
We must recognize how suffering is distributed. Not all pain is private. Much is social, systemic, gendered, or racial. The existential task is to respond authentically—but the ethical task is to change the conditions that breed despair. To deny suffering is to deny injustice. But to sentimentalize it is to stop fighting.

Wolfram:
Powerful insights. Now, our final question:
What gives life meaning when the myths of religion, patriotism, and even progress no longer feel convincing to many?

Arendt:
Meaning comes from natality—the capacity to begin something new. Not from looking backward, but from acting in the world as someone who can create. The political realm, when alive, offers such possibility. But in our era, we retreat into private comfort. We must return to public responsibility. That is where meaning is born.

Beauvoir:
Meaning is a creation. There is no given purpose—only what we shape through freedom. In love, in work, in solidarity, we make meaning. But that making must be conscious. To live without reflecting on one’s project is to be a thing among things. You must choose your meaning—again and again.

Rand:
Meaning comes from achieving your highest potential. The pursuit of productive purpose, guided by reason, is life’s meaning. Not service. Not suffering. Not collectivism. But the joy of creating something worthy—something yours. A rational man or woman needs no myth—only clarity, independence, and pride.

Weil:
And yet, without a myth—without something transcendent—what do you build upon? Meaning that begins and ends in the self is too small. Meaning comes from attention to something greater than oneself. A cry in the dark. A truth not invented, but received. When the ego is silent, grace speaks. And that, not comfort, redeems suffering.

Wolfram Eilenberger (Final Thoughts):
This conversation reveals a haunting paradox of our time: surrounded by ease, we ache for essence. We crave connection, but fear pain. We chase happiness, but lose depth. Perhaps, as you’ve all said in different ways, meaning isn’t found in fleeing suffering—but in how we respond to it.
Whether through reason, creation, surrender, or struggle—meaning waits to be made.

Topic 5: Can Philosophy Still Save the World?

Moderator: Wolfram Eilenberger
Participants: Hannah Arendt, Simone de Beauvoir, Ayn Rand, Simone Weil

Wolfram Eilenberger:
In an era dominated by rapid technology, partisan noise, and existential fatigue, philosophy often feels… distant.
So let us begin here: Does philosophy still matter—and can it truly help humanity solve its greatest problems today?

Simone de Beauvoir:
Philosophy matters now more than ever. It teaches us how to live—not just how to consume. But it must be embodied, not abstract. We need a lived philosophy, rooted in struggle, ambiguity, and freedom. The world doesn’t need perfect systems—it needs people who question, who reflect, who dare to live authentically in complexity.

Ayn Rand:
Philosophy isn’t optional—it’s foundational. Every decision, every law, every value rests on a philosophy, whether acknowledged or not. The question is: is it rational? Most of today’s crises—nihilism, victimhood, dependency—stem from bankrupt ideas. Philosophy can save the world, yes—but only if it rejects collectivist rot and embraces reason, self-interest, and individual rights.

Hannah Arendt:
Philosophy saves the world not by offering answers—but by teaching us to think. That is its sacred task. Totalitarianism arises not from ideology alone, but from thoughtlessness. The danger today is the seduction of automation—where humans no longer think because machines do it faster. To philosophize is to reclaim our moral and political agency.

Simone Weil:
Philosophy cannot save the world if it forgets the soul. Abstract systems are not enough. We must learn to pay attention—not to dominate reality, but to receive it. The world cries out not for theories, but for compassion, for stillness, for grace. Philosophy must become prayerful again—a movement from self toward truth.

Wolfram:
Beautifully expressed. But let’s press further:
What must change—in how we teach, practice, or live philosophy—for it to become a transformative force in today’s fractured society?

Weil:
We must teach attention as the first act of philosophy—not argument, not opinion, but reverence. Education must train the soul to wait, to listen, to serve truth rather than wield it. Philosophy should not begin with “I think,” but with “I see.” Only then can it heal.

Rand:
We must reclaim clarity. Today’s philosophy is often muddled, mystical, or evasive. We must teach logic, precision, and the moral certainty of individualism. Stop worshipping doubt. Teach students to define, to integrate, to act. A thinking mind is the world’s greatest resource—and it must be forged with fire, not fog.

Beauvoir:
We must also connect philosophy to lived experience. Too often, it stays trapped in academia. But real thinking happens in crisis, in injustice, in love, in despair. We must make philosophy public again—through art, conversation, activism. And we must allow it to evolve with us—not as doctrine, but as dialogue.

Arendt:
We must cultivate the public sphere—places where thinking is seen and heard. The internet has not replaced the agora; it has diluted it. Philosophy must help us resist the rush of opinion and rediscover judgment. To appear before others as a thinking being is a political act. That is what must be revived.

Wolfram:
Final question, then:
If you could implant one philosophical habit in every human heart today, what would it be—and why?

Arendt:
The habit of judgment. The willingness to pause, to think from another’s standpoint, to ask: “What kind of world will my actions create?” Without this, politics becomes cruelty disguised as pragmatism. Thinking is not detached—it is the beginning of responsibility.

Rand:
The habit of independent reasoning. To never surrender your mind to tradition, tribe, or trend. If every person lived by their own judgment—rationally, proudly—there would be no need for coercion. Freedom begins in the mind.

Beauvoir:
The habit of becoming. To see oneself not as a fixed identity, but a project. To act freely, to accept ambiguity, and to take responsibility for one’s freedom. Without this, we drift into inauthentic lives shaped by others.

Weil:
The habit of attention—pure, selfless attention. If people truly saw one another, if they truly listened, cruelty would become impossible. Philosophy begins when we are quiet enough to receive the world, not reshape it.

Wolfram Eilenberger (Final Thoughts):
Each of you offers a lifeline for a different kind of salvation:
Arendt calls us back to public thought.
Rand demands clarity and pride.
Beauvoir urges authentic freedom.
Weil invites us into silent grace.
Perhaps philosophy doesn’t save the world in one grand act—but in these habits, these questions, these moments of courage. That is enough. And perhaps, that is everything.

Final Thoughts by Wolfram Eilenberger

As their moderator, I did not come seeking answers. I came seeking courage—the courage to think in a time that begs us to forget.

Arendt reminded us that freedom is born in public space, and dies in indifference.

Beauvoir showed us that responsibility is not a burden, but a choice—an ongoing creation of the self.

Rand provoked us to claim reason as our birthright and to live by values forged, not inherited.

Weil challenged us to abandon pride, to make space for truth—not as domination, but as devotion.

These women did not agree. That is their greatness. They did not conform to each other or to the world. Instead, they demanded that the world conform to the dignity of thought.

In their legacy, we are called—not to comfort, but to conscience. Not to easy slogans, but to difficult questions.

And perhaps, in asking those questions—together—we remember how to be free.

Short Bios:

Hannah Arendt

(1906–1975)
A German-Jewish political theorist and refugee from Nazi Germany, Arendt is best known for her works The Origins of Totalitarianism and The Human Condition. She explored the nature of power, evil, freedom, and responsibility. Arendt emphasized the importance of public action and thought, warning against the dangers of thoughtlessness in political life.

Simone de Beauvoir

(1908–1986)
A French existentialist philosopher, novelist, and pioneering feminist, de Beauvoir authored The Second Sex, a foundational text of modern feminism. She examined the structures of oppression, the ethics of ambiguity, and the constant project of becoming oneself through freedom and conscious choice.

Ayn Rand

(1905–1982)
A Russian-American writer and philosopher, Rand developed the philosophy of Objectivism and is best known for her novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. She championed reason, individual rights, and laissez-faire capitalism, advocating a morality of rational self-interest and heroic individualism.

Simone Weil

(1909–1943)
A French mystic, philosopher, and political activist, Weil lived a life of radical compassion and spiritual intensity. Her writings reflect a profound concern for justice, suffering, and divine truth. Though she died young, her works—like Gravity and Grace—continue to influence thinkers in theology, ethics, and political thought.

Wolfram Eilenberger (Moderator)

(Born 1972)
A German philosopher, author, and public intellectual, Eilenberger is known for making complex philosophical ideas accessible to general audiences. His bestsellers Time of the Magicians and The Visionaries explore the lives and ideas of transformative thinkers. As moderator, he bridges historical insight with contemporary urgency.