Issues
Issue 156: June/July 2023
EDITORIAL
Let’s Get Meta!
by Rick Lewis
NEWS
News: June/July 2023
Big Brother learns to read your mind • Philosophy teachers resolve to associate • Scottish ethicists back euthanasia bill — News reports by Anja Steinbauer
METAETHICS
The Cognitive Gap
Justin Bartlett explores a basic distinction between understandings of ethics.
Who’s To Say?
Michael-John Turp asks if anyone has the authority to establish moral truth.
Right & Wrong About Right & Wrong
Paul Stearns argues against moral relativism and moral presentism.
Ethical Truth in Light of Quantum Mechanics
Iain King and Myles King contend that physics helps us understand ethics.
Can You Be Both A Moral Rationalist & A Moral Sentimentalist?
Andrew Kemle says that evolutionary forces give us the answer.
VAGUENESS
Should We Take Vagueness Seriously?
Apostolos Syropoulos argues that vagueness is a virtue, sometimes.
Uncertainty Made Measurable
Rob Selzer sizes up a human confidence interval.
ARTICLES
Back to the Sophists
Nana Ariel corrects the record and the modern application of Sophistry.
Will the Real John Locke Please Step Forward?
Hilarius Bogbinder shows how Locke’s intellectual identity changed over time.
On Being One With Nature
Niki Young tells us how we (humans) can look at our relationship with Nature in a way that neither alienates us from it nor indistinguishably absorbs us into it.
Nima Adlerblum (1881-1974)
Brad Rappaport looks at the life of a Jewish philosopher combatting the secular forces of modernism.
INTERVIEWS
Jeffrey Raff
Jungian psychoanalyst and author, shares some insights and analysis with Arianna Marchetti.
LETTERS
Letters
Computations & Cogitations • Descartes at the Movies • On the Existence of Pot Roast • Beertification • Problems with Evil • Spread a Little Happiness • Do Stop Believing • Throw Me a Line • The Last Post • Time Left Unresolved
COLUMNS
Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)
by Terence Green
Philosophers on Baths
by Matt Qvortrup
Remembering Memory
Raymond Tallis examines a miracle of mentality.
The Six Core Virtues
Massimo Pigliucci finds six ethical ideals shared by all cultures.
REVIEWS
Debating the A Priori by Paul Boghossian & Timothy Williamson
Teresa Britton debates with debates about reasoning.
Free Will: An Opinionated Guide by Alfred R. Mele
Nikoo Aalabaf freely studies various ideas of free will.
When Animals Dream by David M. Pena-Guzman
Nick Everitt is skeptical about animals dreaming.
The Horror Anomaly
Daniel Toré contemplates the ethics of finding pleasure in displeasure.
CARTOONS
Chris Gill’s Cartoon
by Chris Gill
Simon & Finn
by Melissa Felder
Van Scott’s Cartoon
by Van Scott
Harley Schwadron’s Cartoon
by Harley Schwadron
Phil Witte’s Cartoon
by Phil Witte
Utilitarian Strategies
A comic by Corey Mohler about the inevitable anguish of living a brief life in an absurd world.
FICTION
Bygone Days Yet To Come
Tim Wilkinson reports from the philosophical past, present, and future.
The Opposite of Virtue
by Yahia Lababidi
Consequentialism at the Pearly Gates
by Daniel Galef