Issues
Issue 169: August/September 2025
EDITORIAL
How Do You Know?
by Rick Lewis
NEWS
News: August/September 2025
Ethics Goes Awry in Humans and AI • The Politics of Reincarnation in Tibet • Early Adopter of Kierkegaard & Tillich Dies — News reports by Anja Steinbauer
SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE
Xuanzang & the Gettier Problem
Maya Koka journeys through the desert to seek knowledge about knowledge.
The Philosophical Method of Exception
Peter Keeble spotlights and critiques a common philosophical technique.
Popper, Science & Democracy
Brian King follows Popper’s idea of the evolution of knowledge, life and society.
Challenging the Objectivity of Science
Sina Mirzaye Shirkoohi observes science to get the facts straight about it.
Gödel, Wittgenstein, & the Limits of Knowledge
Michael D. McGranahan takes us to the edge of language, mathematics and science.
ARTICLES
The Centennial of the Scopes ‘Monkey’ Trial
Tim Madigan on the creation and the evolution of a legend.
A Crisis of Attention
Paul Doolan attends to our culture of attention demanding.
Weltschmerz and the World
Ian James Kidd takes a realistic and global view of the history of pessimism.
The Meaning of a Good Life
Following the sad news of Alasdair MacIntyre’s death recently, AmirAli Maleki argues that he and Miskawayh al-Razi shared a similarly Aristotelian vision of the way to live.
What Makes A Work Of Art Great?
Each answer below receives a book. Apologies to all the entrants not included.
Henry Odera Oruka (1944-1995)
Robin Attfield looks at the life of a dedicated promoter of African philosophy.
INTERVIEWS
The Post-Truth Kerfuffle
Susan Haack, who is Distinguished Professor in the Humanities, Cooper Senior Scholar in Arts & Sciences, Professor of Philosophy, and Professor of Law, at the University of Miami, talks with Angela Tan about how and when we know.
LETTERS
Letters
Mindful Missives on Machines • A Bar For Truth • Let Fly At Fry • Explaining God • A Life of Liberation • Get Them While They’re Hot
COLUMNS
Pharmaco-Metaphysics?
Raymond Tallis argues against acidic assertions, and doubts DMT discoveries.
Susan Stebbing (1885-1943)
by Terence Green
Philosophers on Newspapers
by Matt Qvortrup
Nine Spiritual Exercises
Massimo Pigliucci explains how to get Philo-Sophical.
REVIEWS
Feline Philosophy: Cats and the Meaning of Life by John Gray
We follow mammal’s search for meaning, as Mark Vorobej savages John Gray’s book of impractical cat philosophy.
12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos and Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life by Jordan B. Peterson
B.V.E. Hyde ponders the point of Jordan Peterson.
The Republic by Plato
In Classics, Hilarius Bogbinder reviews Plato’s Republic.
The Beatles: Nothing is Real
Clinton Van Inman gets back to the psychedelic Sixties.
FICTION
The Epistemology Professor Losing it in Cincinnati
by Paul Dickey
Me, me, me?
Benjamin George Coles finds himself.
CARTOONS
Harley Schwadron’s Cartoon
by Harley Schwadron
Don’t Mill On It
by Juno Browning
Phil Witte’s Cartoon
by Phil Witte
Steve Delmonte’s Cartoon
by Steve Delmonte
Simon & Finn
by Melissa Felder
Plato’s Noble Lie
A strip by Corey Mohler about Plato’s Noble Lie.