Issues
Issue 30: December 2000 / January 2001
EDITORIAL
A Matter of Life & Death
by Rick Lewis
NEWS
News: December 2000 / January 2001
Charles Hartshorne dies • Dutch legalise euthanasia • Amnesty protests about death row toy • Mayor says “come round for some philosophy!”
CRIME & PUNISHMENT
The American Death Penalty
Is George W. Bush a serial killer? Terri Murray attacks the death penalty with the help of two prisoners executed by the state – Socrates and Jesus.
The Injustice of Punitive Justice
We take their money, their freedom, sometimes their lives, but opinions differ over exactly what we are trying to achieve, how we should go about it and what justifies it anyway. Jane Forsey on the punishment of criminals.
ARTICLES
Leibniz and the Leaves: Beyond Identity
Angels, humans, the leaves on a tree; is each one unique or just an example of its kind? Peter Pesic explains why Leibniz thought even leaves are individuals.
Might You Not Have Been You?
J.J.C. Smart on cricket and counterfactuals.
Necessary Illusions
Roger Caldwell on nature’s little white lies.
Neo’s Choice: Truth versus Happiness in Fear and Trembling
by Joel McCrum
Philosophy & Disability: an overview
Anita Silvers describes a booming area of philosophical enquiry and explains how considering the perspectives of the disabled can help philosophy in general.
The Many Worlds of David Deutsch
Why do some physicists now believe that there are many parallel universes very like our own? And if there are, how will this help us build faster computers?
The Mark of Zombie
These days philosophers of mind talk a lot about zombies, to illustrate ideas about the nature of consciousness. Edward Ingram thinks they are all crazy.
The Sound of Action
In the latest in our series of personal views of philosophy, Lisa Kemmerer describes how thinking changes lives…
You Won’t Know the Difference So You Can’t Make the Choice
says Robin Beck
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
INTERVIEWS
David Deutsch
David Deutsch is a distinguished quantum physicist and a member of the Centre for Quantum Computation at the Clarendon Laboratory, Oxford University. He has received the Paul Dirac Prize and Medal from the Institute of Physics for ‘outstanding contributions to theoretical physics’. He recently talked with Filiz Peach about his work and hopes.
LETTERS
Letters
No Disproof Possible • Truth, Justice & the Amercan Way • Nietzsche: Delusion & Confusion • The Singing Revolutionaries
COLUMNS
Dear Socrates
Having returned from the turn of the Fourth Century B.C. to the turn of the Twenty-First A.D., Socrates has eagerly signed on as a Philosophy Now columnist so that he may continue to carry out his divinely-inspired dialogic mission.
Apt Apologies
by Joel Marks
REVIEWS
Truth and Progress by Richard Rorty
Is truth about the way the world is, or is it about what is convenient for society? Les Reid takes a look at a modern pragmatist and asks: Who’s Afraid of Richard Rorty?
Time Code
In another intrepid exploration of the possibilities of the silver screen, our very own movie maestro Thomas Wartenberg takes notes on an experimental new film called Time Code.
FICTION
The Big Question
Can the great philosophers of the past help us to answer the questions that really matter to us? A short story by Mark Noonan.