Issues
Issue 172: February/March 2026
EDITORIAL
What Have the Romans Ever Done For Us?
by Rick Lewis
NEWS
News: February/March 2026
Texas Prof Banned from Teaching Plato • Chatbots Have Favourite Philosophers • Singer Fears AI Doesn’t ‘Get’ Animal Rights — News reports by Anja Steinbauer
ROMAN PHILOSOPHY
Machiavelli’s Roman Empire
Sam Spound explains why the author of The Prince thought about Rome so much.
Cicero & the Ideal of Virtue
Abdullah Shaikh explores Cicero’s ideas about the core Roman principle of virtus.
The Educational Philosophy of Quintilian
Philip Vassallo learns from a classic of Classical education.
Ancient Synergy
Yolanda De Iuliis looks at how Roman Mithraism incorporated Stoic philosophy.
The Post Paralysis Peace Paradox
Cassandra Brandt offers the reflections of a sedentary Stoic.
ARTICLES
A Very Short History of Critical Thinking
Luc de Brabandere summarises a long history through key figures of thought.
Good Grief!
Tim Madigan ponders the philosophy of Peanuts.
Heisenberg’s Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics
Kanan Purkayastha explains how Werner Heisenberg’s 1925 paper turned the quantum theory of the early 1900s into the quantum mechanics of today.
Identity in the Age of Connectivity
Sara Asran explores the dynamics of identity online.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
Hilarius Bogbinder considers the all too human life of the notorious iconoclast.
INTERVIEWS
Paul Guyer
Paul Guyer is an American philosopher and a leading scholar of both Immanuel Kant and aesthetics. AmirAli Maleki interviews him about Kant’s political and moral vision.
LETTERS
Letters
Race, Philosophy & Science • Chemical Reaction • Moral Feedback • Language Makes A Difference • God: To Be or Not To Be? • What Is Justification? • Women in Philosophy • Schopenhauer, Bringer of Joy • Hypothetical Dragons
COLUMNS
The Possibility-Bearing Animal
Raymond Tallis explores a twilight zone.
Lucretius (c.95-c.55 BCE)
by Terence Green
Philosophers on Children
by Matt Qvortrup
Plutarch on Grief
Massimo Pigliucci is moved by a 2,000 year old letter.
REVIEWS
Death in a Shallow Pond by David Edmonds
Dylan Neri on Singer’s ‘drowning child’ thought experiment.
Facing Down the Furies: Suicide, the Ancient Greeks, and Me by Edith Hall
Manisha Sarade on suicide’s meaning for the Greeks and for us.
Rope
Les Jones has a Nietzschean take on a Hitchcock thriller.
The Necessity of Art by Ernst Fischer
Karzan Aziz Mahmood looks at Ernst Fischer’s advocacy of art.
FICTION
Gyara Is All There Is
by John Gray
Nietzsche Said
by Mike Lewis-Beck
Amazing Times at the Pub Agora
John Douglas Mullen is a philosophical bar fly on the wall.
CARTOONS
Simon & Finn
by Melissa Felder
Guto Dias’ Cartoon
by Guto Dias
Sanko and Gibson’s Cartoon
by Sanko and Gibson
A Crumb of Doubt
by Juno Browning
Jon Carter’s Cartoon
by Jon Carter