Issues
Issue 151: August/September 2022
EDITORIAL
What Have the Greeks Ever Done for Us?
by Rick Lewis
NEWS
News: August/September 2022
Face-off at Microsoft • Museum argues over ethics of sponsorship • Philosophers meet by candlelight — News reports by Anja Steinbauer
THE GREEKS
An Ancient Conversation About Motion
Matei Tanasă imagines the sort of conversation about change, motion, appearance and reality that philosophers were having in ancient Athens.
Plato’s Myths
Neel Burton asks why the master reasoner turned to launching legends.
The Pandemos
Michael Baumann imagines what a modern Socratic dialogue might be like.
Aristotle’s Guide To Living Well
Lawrence Evans contemplates Aristotle’s argument that happiness is the ultimate goal of human life, and that it can best be found in philosophical contemplation.
The Uses and Misuses of Socrates
Dennis Sansom says we shouldn’t be too quick to pluck philosophers out of their own historical contexts in order to put them into ours.
Of Clouds & Shadows
Heiner Thiessen on Eratosthenes, Ancient Greek scientist.
ARTICLES
Levinas and Post-Pandemic Masking
Adam Birt tells us why Levinas wants us to throw off our face coverings.
How To Be Really Good
Robert Griffiths considers what it takes to actually be a mensch.
Mill, Free Speech & Social Media
Nevin Chellappah asks whether John Stuart Mill’s famous account of free speech is still sustainable in the age of Twitter.
Digital Freedom
Roberta Fischli & Thomas Beschorner argue that our digital future is not preprogrammed: it’s about time we start thinking about what it should look like.
Was Spinoza Actually An Atheist?
Kenneth Novis says the case hinges on how you define ‘God’.
Daisetsu Suzuki (1870-1966)
Brian Morris contemplates the ‘ultimate reality’ of a Zen Buddhist philosopher.
How Do You Change Someone’s Mind?
Each answer below receives a book. Apologies to the entrants not included.
INTERVIEWS
Timothy Morton
Timothy Morton is a professor at Rice University in Houston. They have written more than fifteen books, such as Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World; Dark Ecology; Being Ecological, and Ecology without Nature. Thiago Pinho interviews them about experience and reality.
LETTERS
Letters
Wittgenstein Out-Played • Gender and Pragmatism • He’s Behind You • For Hume The Bell Tolls? • The Possibility of Progress • The Good & The Not • Matter versus Mind • Stranger Ideas • Meta Letters • To P or To Not P?
COLUMNS
Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)
by Terence Green
Philosophers on Coffee
by Matt Qvortrup
How Did We Get To Be So Different?
Raymond Tallis grasps the grip our hands have on our humanity.
REVIEWS
Metaphysical Animals by Clare Mac Cumhaill & Rachael Wiseman and The Women Are Up to Something by Benjamin Lipscomb
Katie Barron look at two books on four famous female philosophers and friends.
The Life Inside by Andy West
Amna Whiston looks at a book on the liberating experience of teaching philosophy in prison.
Don’t Look Up
Dylan Skurka marvels at the human capacity to ignore existential threats.
CARTOONS
Phil Witte’s Cartoon (1)
by Phil Witte
Simon & Finn
by Melissa Felder
Harley Schwadron’s Cartoon (1)
by Harley Schwadron
Phil Witte’s Cartoon (2)
by Phil Witte
Harley Schwadron’s Cartoon (2)
by Harley Schwadron
Wolfgang Niesielski’s Cartoon
by Wolfgang Niesielski
Presocratic Return
A comic by Corey Mohler about the inevitable anguish of living a brief life in an absurd world.
FICTION
Glaucon Before Lachesis
Mark Piper unveils the long-lost epilogue to Plato’s Republic.
The Song of Ulysses
by Clinton Van Inman
Socrates & Xanthippe
by Wolfgang Niesielski