Doha Debates Explores the Role of Ancient Wisdom in Today’s World

Experts and students debate whether ancient wisdom holds answers for modern societies

As the world grapples with questions of meaning and moral direction, Doha Debates takes on a fundamental question: Should ancient wisdom guide today’s societies?

In this episode of the new flagship season, moderated by Dareen Abughaida, students from across Qatar join three global thinkers to wrestle with a timeless dilemma: whether the answers to our most pressing problems lie in tradition or in bold new ideas.

Wael Hallaq, Avalon Foundation Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University, critiques what he calls the “moral emptiness” of modernity and its fixation on material progress. He calls for a return to ethical foundations rooted in the divine. “We have to look to the past, which is rich in resources, and we have to develop particular methods of thinking about it,” he says.

For Sophie Scott-Brown, a philosopher and historian of political thought based at the Institute of Intellectual History (St. Andrews University), the danger lies in romanticizing the past. She challenges inherited authority, urging critical awareness of how power often hides behind the language of tradition. “We need to be very careful about how much authority we give to claims that something is natural or historical,” she says. “We need to be very mindful of the politics behind it.”

Bruno Maçães, author of World Builders and former Secretary of State for European Affairs in Portugal, offers a pragmatic middle path. As liberal universalism gives way to a world of “civilizational modernities,” he argues, nations are rediscovering their own cultural inheritance: “Even if we don’t want to accept the solutions or the answers that are given by past traditions or societies, we have a lot to learn from them.”

The debate expands from questions of tradition into a broader search for meaning, as guests and students consider how humans find moral grounding—whether in sacred law, cultural memory or radical freedom.

“Across civilizations, people are searching for moral direction in an age of uncertainty,” says Amjad Atallah, managing director of Doha Debates. “This debate challenges all of us to explore where we can find wisdom, meaning and purpose in our lives.”

Filmed in Doha Debates’ Majlis-style format, the conversation reflects the organization’s mission to spark open, truth-seeking conversations and reminds us that wisdom, ancient or new, is never just inherited; it is rediscovered and shaped across cultures and generations.