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Letters
Letters
Law or Philosophy? • Minds, Machines, Metaphysics • Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom • Kicking Against The Pricks • Education Lessons • Nietzsche Feature • Collapsing The Universe
Law or Philosophy?
Dear Editor: Prof Oliver Leaman’s article in Issue 173 on Islamic legal reform and philosophy offers a broad survey of debates in the field, but it seems to me that he too readily divides the legal and philosophical spheres.
Leaman writes: “A lively debate is taking place about how far Islamic law can be changed and according to what principles.” This is not, however, a new phenomenon. Islamic jurists and scholars have grappled with the extent to which they can derive a ratio legis (the intention of the law) from the Quran, and thus extrapolate to new circumstances, for more than a millennium. This started way before al-Shatibi, whom Leaman mentions in his article. The most obvious example is the prohibition on all intoxicants, although the Quranic text itself refers only to wine. But although the debate falls within the definition of ‘philosophy’, it has also always been bound up with the practice of jurisprudence.
George Cairns, Oxford
Minds, Machines, Metaphysics
Dear Editor: I agree with much of what Adnan Abbasi says in his article ‘The Prayer the Machine Cannot Pray’ in Issue 173. For example, I share his belief that an AI does not have consciousness. However, I’m afraid I also disagree on several points. For instance, he says that “There is always a ‘for-whom’ element to awareness. Perspective requires a continuing subject to anchor it.” This idea of an ongoing subject plays an important part in his argument, but I do not agree that experience requires an ongoing subject. An experience only consists of itself being experienced. It does not exist in any other way. Therefore it only exists to itself. Apart from the experience itself, there is no other experiencer of it. It therefore seems to follow logically (although surprisingly) that anything outside that experience and its perspective does not coexist with it. So if there is a series of experiences, there cannot be an extra ongoing entity or subject which experiences them all. Rather, each experience is only experienced by itself. So although it may appear that there is an ongoing subject, that idea cannot really be correct.
Peter Spurrier, Halstead, Essex
Dear Editor: Adnan Abbasi correctly reports Hume’s insight that when we behold two sequential events and attribute to them cause and effect, we do not actually witness the causation itself, but infer the connection. As Kant was then prompted to argue, we do so because our minds are endowed with a structure which allows it make sense of the world, including perceiving causation.
Given the gap between what we perceive and how we interpret the experience, Hume felt that the laws of physics could not be proved. That such laws are an outworking of God’s activity in creation might well be accepted by some, as this merely adds another layer to a legitimate description of how the world works. However, to suggest as Abbasi does that God somehow intervenes between natural phenomena and our awareness of them, is another matter. If our consciousness is a gift of God, then it is contingent on divine action, which presumably is selective. As such, it cannot be said to be in harmony with natural law, but is an anomaly; indeed, it remains a miracle, and so untrustworthy as a scientific hypothesis, as Hume argues. Moreover, it does not really answer the hard problem of consciousness, since it does not explain how we experience; that is, the mystery of how brain facilitates experience remains.
In his famous treatise The Incoherence of the Philosophers, which Abbasi mentions, Al-Ghazali rejected the ‘monopsychism’ propounded by Averroes, which holds that the active part of human consciousness, the intellect, is a unitary whole shared by all, rather than being the distinct possession of individuals. Thomas Aquinas attacked this doctrine in De Unitate Intellectus, arguing that only if a person’s consciousness were separate and specific to them could they be said to possess a soul or be held responsible for their actions. Despite his rejection of monopsychism, Al-Ghazali’s occasionalism does not do justice to this issue, as it makes intellectual initiative dependent on the will of God, and so ultimately personally unaccountable.
Colin Sowden
Dear Editor: I found Adnan Abbasi’s refutation of a physicalist explanation of consciousness in Issue 173 to be as compelling as these arguments ever can be. Alas it was accompanied by the sinking feeling I always get when confronted with ‘transcendental’ explanations, reviving painful echoes of my early indoctrination as a Catholic. Philosophy subsequently rescued me from credulity by allowing me to accept our epistemic limits: to recognise that explanations always inevitably run out, whether the field is cosmos, consciousness, or existence. Instead of accepting that we must sooner or later hit the buffers when naturalist accounts end, transcendentalists try to defer that inevitable abyss of the unknown by positing a realm that is, by definition, inexplicable. In Abbasi’s case, nothing about the idea of the bestowal by Allah of consciousness on specific ‘occasions’ where there’s sufficient biological complexity constitutes any form of explanation, by modern scientific standards.
Dr Christopher Burke, Rochdale
Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom
Dear Editor: Thank you, thank you. The issue dedicated to Islamic Philosophy is a wonderful and open handed offer of philosophies from other schools. This is what we need today – to be open and learn from others. Thanks for this, editorial team. [Mostly thank AmirAli Maleki, whose idea it was, Ed.] I hope we will see more of philosophies other than mainstream ones. We need to have the cloud pulled from our eyes.
Molly Lim, Sydney, Australia
Dear Editor: As a seventeen-year-old girl studying Philosophy & Theology at A level, I really enjoyed reading Marcia Yudkin’s article ‘What Women?’ in Issue 171. I find it strange that my female-dominated class has only learnt about two female philosophers, and often catch myself feeling surprised when we’re not learning about a man. The fact that in 2026, an A level syllabus consists almost entirely of white men is quite frankly horrendous, and I too am constantly asking “What women?”.
I am well aware that due to a long history of patriarchy, mostly only men could become influential philosophers. Women were seen as not fit for education, let along hard thinking. Now we know that is not the case, and that women were being oppressed for their gender, as well as class, and race. However some, even students, still unconsciously adopt this discrimination because they only associate important philosophical views with men. This should not be the case. Exam boards should raise awareness to the fact that the reason there are many more influential male philosophers than female philosophers is not because women are a ‘deformity’ (thanks Aristotle), but because they have been held back by years of oppression.
Yudkin also makes some excellent points about how philosophy is carried out, criticising the male ‘attack, defend, attack, defend’ style that’s been around so long simply because no women have been able to challenge it. In my lessons we take part in debates which follow the same style, and we’re taught to write essays with that structure. There are no opportunities to express ideas and theories in any other way. It’s stifling.
As we’re currently in the fourth wave of feminism and battling new sources of misogyny, it is more important than ever that schools acknowledge the lack of female representation and diversity in subjects like philosophy, because if students only learn about white men in an area, they begin to think that only men have a place in that area. I am constantly reminded of the quote from Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex that Yudkin included in her article: “the representation of the world, like the world itself, is the work of men; they describe it from their own point of view, which they confuse with the absolute truth.” The aim of a philosopher is to better understand the world. If we only learn about what men think, in a way that men decide is right, we are only given one perspective.
S. Kelso, Kent
Dear Editor: I have been greatly enjoying your recent articles on the philosophical musings of modern cultural icons such as The Beatles, David Bowie, and Taylor Swift. I have also, admittedly with a degree of schadenfreude, been enjoying reading the increasingly irate responses from po faced correspondents who feel such writing is beneath their interest. I strongly urge you to ignore their narrow minded attempts at gate-keeping. Philosophical inspiration can be found anywhere, and should surely be looked for everywhere. One of the joys of Philosophy Now is the breadth of ideas explored in each issue and the variety of viewpoints that inform your articles. Please do not be tempted to reduce this rich worldview because of grumpy naysayers.
A recent correspondent asked if Philosophy Now wishes to be considered a serious publication. I hope you will answer with a resounding “No!”, as I cannot imagine anything more dull and uninspiring. Personally, I would be delighted to find an article on Ken Dodd’s hit ‘Happiness’ in a forthcoming issue.
Jon Sheppard, Peterborough
Kicking Against The Pricks
Dear Editor: I would like to ask Krishna Chaubey (‘The Hedgehog’s Dilemma: A Metaphor About the Challenges of Human Intimacy’, PN 173) how hedgehogs reproduces if their quills prevent them coming together?
Michael Shaw, Huddersfield
Education Lessons
Dear Editor: Despite having taught in schools for nineteen years and having a Masters degree in Education, I was not familiar with Quintilian. Thanks to Philip Vassallo for introducing me to his thinking in Issue 172. I agree with Quintillian’s educational philosophy, especially with regard to early years influence.
The importance of the early years was exemplified in the establishment of the Violence Reduction Unit by Strathclyde Police (now Police Scotland) in 2005. I recall a presentation by Inspector John Carnochan, who led the Unit. He argued that most of the most violent men had experienced violence regularly in their upbringing and were not good at expressing their feelings. So, a proportion of the actions of the Unit was directed towards the children of men with a history of violence. They highlighted the importance of speaking to children from as soon as possible after they were born, and recommended that mothers arrange the child’s pushchair so that the child was facing her, and that she should talk continually to the child. Inspector Carnochan saw child-rearing, especially speech development, as an essential part in breaking the cycle of violence. The aim was to prevent the children from developing as their fathers had. The reduction in violent crime in Scotland is a testament to this approach.
Alasdair Macdonald, Glasgow
Nietzsche Feature
Dear Editor: In his otherwise commendable profile of Friedrich Nietzsche in Issue 172, Hilarius Bogbinder writes that The Will to Power, the collection of Nietzsche’s unfinished and unpublished notes posthumously brought together in book form by his sister Elisabeth, “was a gross misrepresentation of everything Nietzsche stood for”. This is untrue.
Many have been keen to delegitimise The Will to Power, mainly on the ground that this was Nietzsche’s work which gave itself most readily to appropriation by the Nazis. Indeed, some of the prose is extreme and incendiary even by Nietzsche’s standards, and seems indistinguishable from later Nazi propaganda, such as: “What the species demands is the elimination of the ill-constituted, the weak, the degenerate”, or “the higher type is possible only through the reduction of inferior types to a subordinate function.” Much of the content elsewhere, however, is wholly consistent with what appeared in books published in his lifetime. This includes his scorn for compassion and utilitarianism, and his suspicion of altruism: “Altruism is the most mendacious form of egoism (utilitarianism), the most sentimental form of egoism.” We also see a return to a theme expounded in The Genealogy of Morality (1887), that subjective moral systems are created out of base need: “In every value judgement there is a definite point of view: the preservation of an individual, a community, a race, a state, a church, a faith or a culture.” His lifelong hostility to a faith he saw founded on ‘slave morality’ is also repeated: “Christianity is always betting on the ressentiments which people of low condition feel against everything held in high esteem.” So while The Will to Power is to be read with caution, it is not a ‘gross misrepresentation’ of Nietzsche’s thinking.
Patrick West, Deal, Kent
Collapsing The Universe
Dear Editor: The helpful account by Kanan Purkayastha of the philosophy behind Heisenberg’s quantum mechanics (PN 172) has one important omission: the recognition that the focus on ‘observation’ in most of Twentieth Century quantum theory stemmed from the fact that it was developed to explain observations made in the lab. This is of no use to cosmologists, who are trying to explain the macroscopic effects of quantum phenomena rather than those phenomena themselves. If observation is necessary to create a determined reality, how did the universe get by for the first few billion years when there were no conscious observers to cut a gazillion universes in superposition down to the one we know? This is why one modern account of quantum mechanics says that it’s entanglement with the environment that collapses the possible outcomes of a quantum event. Observation with an instrument is merely one example of the environment getting involved. Sadly for human vanity, consciousness has nothing to do with it.
Roger S Haines, London
Dear Editor: I like to read Tallis because he forces you to practice philosophy, especially if you disagree with him. Such was the case when I read ‘The Possibility Bearing Animal’ in Issue 172. He concludes that “probabilities are no more objective in the physical world than are possibilities, which of course exist only insofar as they are envisaged.” This implies that probabilities are a function of the mind, and without a mind to perceive them, they have no physical manifestation.
Erwin Schrödinger’s remarkable book, What is Life? (1944) starts by emphasising the role of statistics in physics with the statement, “the laws of physics and chemistry are statistical throughout.” This is without considering quantum mechanics, the most famous expression of which is Schrödinger’s own equation.
Schrödinger himself was disappointed and frustrated that his equation required Max Born’s technique of converting the wave function into probabilities to make it relevant to the world. But that conversion has made his equation one of the most successful in the history of physics. And it goes to the heart of Tallis’s thesis.
Although he doesn’t frame his discussion in these terms, Tallis is talking about the distinction between epistemology and ontology, that is, between what we know and what exists. Freeman Dyson once warned about the ‘reification’ of Schrödinger’s wave function – making an abstract concept real. He pointed out how quantum mechanics cannot describe the past, but only the future, which is why it can only deal in probabilities. So I agree with Tallis that probabilities are an epistemological feature; but they give us knowledge about future events that actually occur, so they’re real too. The best example is radioactive decay, which is manifest as a half-life extraordinarily accurately given enough stuff; but it’s impossible to predict the decay of an individual atom. The half-life happens independently of any human mind – yet it’s determined by a probabilistic phenomenon.
Paul P Mealing, Melbourne
Dear Editor: In Issue 172, ‘The Possibility-Bearing Animal’, Raymond Tallis argues that language and a sense of possibility – our ability to imagine what might be – are central to human nature. While I share his appreciation of our imaginative capacity, I question how we can know that this ability is uniquely human. We cannot directly access the inner lives of other animals, nor reliably infer them from behaviour alone. On what grounds, then, can we claim that only humans think beyond the present?
Recent neuroscience questions this assumption. In 2023 Chongxi Lai and colleagues showed that rats can use their imagination to navigate a virtual environment via a brain–machine interface, without moving. Neural activity in the hippocampus during this task resembled patterns observed when the rats had previously navigated the same space physically, suggesting a form of imagination.
So, are humans truly the only possibility-bearing animals?
Christoph Hönigsperger, Oslo
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