Michael Sandel is an extraordinarily popular performing philosopher. In 2009 he gave the Reith Lectures where he discussed the possibility of a new politics of the common good. In 2010 he appeared on TED talking about the need for democratic debate and at the RSA where he argued for a new committment to citizenship. During the last four weeks he has delivered a series of lectures at the LSE and recorded by BBC Radio 4. Within hours of these lectures being announced, over 2,000 people had requested tickets. A buzz precedes his every appearance. What makes him so much of a draw is that he is able to enter into a critical dialogue with his audience – in person or through a screen. By engaging with members of this audience on their terms, Sandel is able, almost effortlessly, to pull out points of principle, reveal philosophical precedents, clarify implications, and enable his interlocutors to see for themselves the arguments they make and how strong or weak those arguments are. By self-deprecation he avoids becoming the philosophical puppet-master. His ideas are less important than the development of the ideas of those he’s encouraging to think: he’s the teacher as shaper.

But perhaps most importantly of all, Michael Sandel reminds us of the power of language as a cultural tool to solve problems. His performances, and his skills in facilitating the performances of others, are enactments of the two functions of language: cognitive and communicative. Listening to a member of his audience ‘trying on an argument’ through articulating a position before rejecting it as unsatisfactory or unjustifiable, reminds us how we use words to think with. When we watch two people engaged in defending their positions against counter-claims until one is convinced of the other’s perspective, we see how communication changes the way we think. Changing the ways we think can change what we think.