Welcome to Philosophy Now
the bi-monthly magazine for everyone interested in ideas. Published since 1991, it was the winner of the 2016 Bertrand Russell Society Award. Please look around! You can read four articles free per month. To have complete access to the thousands of philosophy articles on this site
Interview
Stephen Fry
Perhaps unshockingly for someone who is an actor, broadcaster, comedian, director, narrator and writer, Stephen Fry has a deep interest in words and how we use them. After hearing him lecture on that subject, Marcel Steinbauer-Lewis asked him about Artificial Intelligence and how it connects with the extraordinary lure of language.
Digital Philosophy
Ethics for the Age of AI
Mahmoud Khatami asks, can machines make good moral decisions?
Rescuing Mind from the Machines
Vincent J. Carchidi agrees with Descartes and friends that our ability to use language creatively distinguishes our minds from computers.
Studying Smarter with AI?
Max Gottschlich on sense and nonsense when using AI in academia.
Affirmative Action for Androids
Jimmy Alfonso Licon asks, when should we prioritise android rights?
Regulars
Editorial: AI Think Therefore AI Am
by Rick Lewis
News: June/July 2025
Renowned Ethicist Alasdair MacIntyre Dies • Thoughts About Happiness • Sex versus Gender in the Courts — News reports by Anja Steinbauer
Articles
Stephen Fry
Perhaps unshockingly for someone who is an actor, broadcaster, comedian, director, narrator and writer, Stephen Fry has a deep interest in words and how we use them. After hearing him lecture on that subject, Marcel Steinbauer-Lewis asked him about Artificial Intelligence and how it connects with the extraordinary lure of language.
Welcome to the Civilization of the Liar’s Paradox
Slavoj Žižek uncovers political paradoxes of lying.
Is Laughter Liberating or Cruel?
Alfie Bown investigates different categories of laughter.
What Simone de Beauvoir Got – And Didn’t Get – About Motherhood
Nura Hossainzadeh argues that motherhood is both physical and transcendent.
Young & Meaningful
Elise Beal notes a Japanese philosophy of finding pleasure in the small things, and matches it with an online trend.
Anand Vaidya (1976-2024)
Manjula Menon on the short but full career of a ‘disciplinary trespasser’.
Columns
Philosophy Shorts: Philosophers on Holidays
by Matt Qvortrup
The Art of Living: The Importance of the Purple
Massimo Pigliucci looks for threads of integrity in a morally compromised world.
Tallis in Wonderland: Excusing God
Raymond Tallis highlights the problem of evil.
Philosophical Haiku: Helvétius (1715-1771)
by Terence Green
Reviews
Liberalism as a Way of Life by Alexandre Levebvre
We search for freedom this issue, as Kevin Currie points out the many varieties of liberalism.
Determined by Robert Sapolsky
Philip Badger questions Robert Sapolsky’s determinism.
Perfect Days
Thomas E. Wartenberg focuses on a path to happiness.
Prague 22 by Raymond Tallis
Rick Lewis reviews Raymond Tallis’s latest book.
Fiction
It’s Just A Joke
by Christine Jefferys
