Issues
Issue 123: December 2017 / January 2018
EDITORIAL
The False Mirror: A Brief History of Prejudice
by Anja Steinbauer
NEWS
News: December 2017 / January 2018
Human brains to connect to cloud storage! • Mini human brains implanted in rodents! • Psychologists study moral intuition — News reports by Anja Steinbauer
PREJUDICE & PERCEPTION
Xenos: Jacques Derrida on Hospitality
Peter Benson tackles xenophobia with the help of Jacques Derrida and Plato.
Perfectionism & Hate Speech Law
Shaun O’Dwyer on reconciling free speech with protection against hate speech.
Homelessness & the Limits of Hospitality
Anya Daly says we’ll solve homelessness only when we see it as our problem.
Prostitution & Instrumentalization
Rob Lovering argues that a popular argument against prostitution doesn’t work.
An Education In Diversity?
Christina Easton asks if a liberal education can be forced on non-liberal communities.
ARTICLES
What’s So Bad About Smugness?
Emrys Westacott asks whether it really is a terrible moral failing.
The Rise of the Intelligent Authors
Lochlan Bloom wonders what writers will do when computers become better writers than humans.
Santa Claus & the Problem of Evil
Jimmy Alfonso Licon engages in a little Santodicy for Christmas.
Kant & The Human Subject
Brian Morris compares the ways Kant’s question “What is the human being?” has been answered by philosophers and anthropologists.
Defending Humanistic Reasoning
Paul Giladi, Alexis Papazoglou, & Giuseppina D’Oro say we need to recognise that science and the humanities are asking and answering different questions.
Seeing the Future in the Present Past
Siobhan Lyons perceives the flow of history in terms of organic growth and decay.
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
In Thoreau’s bicentenary, Martin Jenkins looks at the famous American eccentric.
How Can I Know Right From Wrong?
The following responses to this basic ethical question each win a random book.
LETTERS
Letters
Panpsychic Ricochets • A Solace of Quantum • In Praise of Brain Hats • Serious Baby Talk • Serious Misrepresentations • Philosophy as Pattern Recognition • Poet’s Corner
COLUMNS
Laozi (Pre-Fourth Century BCE)
by Terence Green
When Your Favorite Philosopher is a Bigot
Peter Adamson considers possible ways forward.
Death & The Philosopher
Raymond Tallis on philosophical attitudes to non-being.
REVIEWS
Ultimate Questions by Bryan Magee
Grant Sterling asks some immediate questions about Ultimate Questions.
Aesthetics & the Sciences of Mind
John Greenbank asks if science can ultimately tell us anything about artistic experience.
The Big Lebowski
Matt Qvortrup contemplates Dude philosophy.
CARTOONS
Simon & Finn
by Melissa Felder
Chris Gill’s Cartoon
by Chris Gill
Steve Delmonte’s Cartoon
by Steve Delmonte
FICTION
Photography In The 18th Century
by Peter Keeble
The Truth
Kaya York tries to comprehend Everything.