Issues
Issue 25: Winter 1999/2000
EDITORIAL
What’s So Funny?
by Rick Lewis
NEWS
News: Winter 1999/2000
Thinkers in ‘Nazi language’ row • University philosophy threatened • Kojéve was a spy • Exiled philosopher seeks presidential pardon
Field Being
Rick Lewis was at the 3rd Symposium on Field Being and the Non-Substantialistic Turn, August 12-17 1999.
HUMOUR
A Philosophy Department Commencement Address (Being an Allegory of Self-Discovery and Enlightenment)
Randall Curren finds that talking about humor is no laughing matter. Especially on national television.
Abbott and Costello meet Wittgenstein
Tim Madigan on some philosophical comedians.
Philosophy and Humor
An introduction by Tim Madigan.
The Inevitable Philosophy Lightbulb Jokes
The Philosopher as Joker
Peter Rickman on the unsettling similarities between jokes and philosophy.
The Secret of Seinfeld’s Humor
Jorge J.E. Gracia on the Significance of the Insignificant.
ARTICLES
Christian Ethics: An Ambiguous Legacy
Terri Murray tells the story of how St. Paul hijacked a religion.
Detecting Androids
Antoni Diller isn’t one. And he can prove it.
Humans and Dumb Animals
Jane Forsey asks, what makes us so special?
The Origins of Don Giovanni
If our genes are selfish, does that mean that we are too? Mary Midgley explains the facts of life.
Vagueness: an introduction (sort of)
Fred Ablondi tells you Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Vagueness. But not quite.
Donald Davidson
by J. Hopkins
INTERVIEWS
John Searle
One of the leading figures in contemporary philosophy, John Searle is the author of many influential books, but thinks that in a way he has just been writing one book all along. In June he visited London, where Julian Moore asked him what it is about.
LETTERS
Letters
The Meaning of Life • Muhammed • Violent Response
COLUMNS
Peg’s Piece
Philosophy Now’s columnist Peg Tittle fires off a few rounds.
REVIEWS
Intellectual Impostures by Sokal and Bricmont
Robert Taylor cheers to the rafters the attack by Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont on modern French philosophy’s misuse of scientific language.
FICTION
Ethical Emergency
Carl Maxim is the Bill Gates of philosophy.