Issues
Issue 104: September/October 2014
EDITORIAL
Step Out of My Sunlight!
by Anja Steinbauer
NEWS
News: September/October 2014
Terror group labels philosophy “ungodly” • Hawking warns of end of universe • Ethics panel debates ebola response — News reports by Sue Roberts, Anja Steinbauer and Matthew Wills
THE OTHER GREEK PHILOSOPHERS
Philosophy’s Roots and Branches
Will Bouwman on how Thales, Anaximander, Pythagoras, Parmenides & Zeno established empiricism, maths & logic as dominant features of Western thinking.
Democritus: Empirical Rationalist
Chris Christensen argues that two basic philosophical opposites were harmoniously united in the thought of Democritus (460-370 BC).
Ataraxia in the Age of Too Much Information
Eric Scheske considers the link between Pyrrho of Elis and internet culture.
How To Be A Cynic
Roger Caldwell contemplates the life and thinking of Diogenes the Dog.
Epicurus & Job
Benjamin Kerstein explores an ancient faultline in Western thinking and modern culture by comparing the philosophies of Epicurus and Job.
ARTICLES
Nietzsche on Love
Willow Verkerk considers what Nietzsche has to teach us about love.
Artifact Liberation
Bill Capra considers the controversial argument that things have rights.
The Morality Machine
Phil Badger considers what it would take to make truly justifiable moral decisions.
Climate Science & Falsifiability
Richard Lawson shows how Karl Popper can help settle the climate debate.
Sceptical Hypotheses and Transcendental Arguments
Jonathan Barfield presents a way to beat the sceptics.
Obscurantism & The Language of Excess
Siobhan Lyons tries not to use either to explain what and why they are.
Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814)
Matt Qvortrup on the cosmopolitan idealist who became the misunderstood father of German nationalism.
LETTERS
Letters
Some(non)thing To Say • Fooling Yourself Rationally • Better Consequences • Attack & Defence • Do Not Pass Go • Vegetable Matters • Thinking Mathematically • Scientific Separations • Marxist Critiques
COLUMNS
Ideas and Scholarship in Philosophy
Raymond Tallis asks: does it matter who said what?
REVIEWS
Philosophy and the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, edited by Nicholas Joll
Massimo Pigliucci finds his way around Philosophy and the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
The Conscious Brain by Jesse J. Prinz
Sam Clarke ponders The Conscious Brain.
Truth By Analysis by Colin McGinn
Richard Baron analyses Truth by Analysis.
Reflections on the Death of Celluloid
Thomas Wartenberg looks at philosophy literally on film.
CARTOONS
You Are Here
by Chris Madden
Simon & Finn
by Melissa Felder
FICTION
Democritus’s Cone
by Sarah Adams
Gerry’s Paradox
Frank O’Carroll tells of an athlete who had a run-in with Zeno.