Issues
Issue 176: October/November 2026
EDITORIAL
Let’s Get Metaphysical
by Rick Lewis
NEWS
News: October/November 2026
Nussbaum wins Kluge Prize • Edgar Morin dead at 104 • Dundee Philosophy fights back • AI’s plan to enslave humanity continues — News reports by Anja Steinbauer
METAPHYSICS
Causation: A History
Peter Keeble causes us to think about causation.
‘Why is there something rather than nothing?’
Andrew Brenner tries to make sense of the question.
Classical Indian & Modern Scientific Metaphysics
Mansi Tripathi hosts a trialogue.
The Nature of Reality
Simon Everson says Immanuel Kant can help with quantum mechanics.
What is Metaphysics?
Sajid Bijapure asks what it does, and what it might do in the future.
ARTICLES
Does Feminism Need More Than Liberalism?
Vanessa Yeung considers feminist responses to Rawlsian liberalism.
To Philosophize is to Learn How to Say Goodbye
Scott F. Parker reflects on philosophy as a preparation for death.
When Truth Loses its Witnesses
Mohsen Askari on why not all political narratives should be treated as equal.
In Defence of Hope
Sam Nuttall hopes to defend it with the help of Gabriel Marcel and Ernst Bloch.
Fraudulent Hope?
Alice Figes agrees with Ernst Bloch that hope can build worlds or destroy them, and philosophy’s task is to tell the difference.
Günther Anders (1902-1992)
Clive Webb on how Anders warned humanity about the moral costs of technological progress.
INTERVIEWS
Kasia Muzyka
Kasia Muzyka discusses painting the unspoken and recovering the sacred in life through art.
LETTERS
Letters
Continental Rifts • A Lament For Thought • Antinatalism and the Will to Live • Life and Death • Murdering Compassion • Peak Experiences • Property Duelling • How Hedgehogs Mate • Mental By Definition
COLUMNS
On Being (Un)Remembered
Raymond Tallis contemplates the end of all things Tallis.
Robert Nozick (1938-2002)
by Terence Green
Philosophers on AI
by Matt Qvortrup
How to Make the World Intelligible
Massimo Pigliucci on a couple of ancient ways of doing so.
REVIEWS
Cosmic Connections: Poetry in the Age of Disenchantment by Charles Taylor
Roger Caldwell considers Charles Taylor’s philosophical thoughts on poetry.
Against the Machine by Paul Kingsnorth
Charles Repp questions a slightly vague revolutionary vision.
Why The Ancient Greeks Matter by Reviel Netz
Helios Selvan looks back at what made ancient Greek culture distinctive.
RoboCop
Alessandro Colarossi holds a sci-fi mirror up to AI.
FICTION
Chair Ontology
by Dylan Skurka
The Returners from the Great Ocean
Ayat Aziz As-selwi tells of a deep quest.
CARTOONS
Existential Comics
A strip by Corey Mohler on metaphysics and what the world is made of.
Mark Grant’s Cartoon (1)
by Mark Grant
Mark Grant’s Cartoon (2)
by Mark Grant
Moral Train-ing
by Juno Browning
Simon & Finn
by Melissa Felder