Issues
Issue 37: August/September 2002
EDITORIAL
“That Devil’s Madness”
by Rick Lewis
NEWS
News: August/September 2002
Doubting Dads in DNA Theft • A Smack of Censorship • Bare-Skinned Broilers • Medical Microchips • No Perfume for Kitty
WAR
Armistice Day Reflections
Bob Sharpe asks what it is to die for one’s country.
Mutually Assured Destruction
With the conflict between India and Pakistan reaching a point of crisis, the threat of nuclear war is once again on the minds of many. Duncan Richter, Dylan Suzanne and Robert M. Martin discuss the logic behind the Cold War and the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction.
Return to Iron Mountain
David Limond takes a critical look at arguments in support of war.
The ‘War of Good Against Evil’
Raimond Gaita on racism, religion and the motives of suicide bombers.
ARTICLES
Mirroring without Metaphysics
Michael Philips on truth and the Correspondence Theory.
Morality and Hot Mud
Arnold Zuboff replies to his critics.
Rehabilitating the Ad Hominem Argument
Should Bertrand Russell’s ‘skirt chasing’ be taken into account when thinking about his moral theories? Stephen Anderson argues that it might, in this reply to Tim Madigan’s criticism of ad hominem arguments.
The Atheist & the Foxhole
Catriona Hanley asks: Is God still dead?
The Dialectics of Faith & Enlightenment
Hegel has been enormously influential, but is notoriously difficult to read. In this new section, Peter Benson guides us through a series of typical Hegelian moves from the ‘Phenomenology of Spirit.’.
The Nature of Religious Belief
Chris Bloor replies to ‘Cutting God in Half’ by Nicholas Maxwell.
Top Marx?
Karen Adler reports on the ‘Return(s) to Marx’ conference at the Tate Modern in London.
Uncertainty and Public Policy
Richard Taylor tells us why public policies always go wrong…
Jacques Derrida
by Matt Williams
QUIZ
Andrew’s Literary Quiz
See if you can identify the authors of the following war-related passages.
INTERVIEWS
M.J. Akbar
M.J. Akbar is the editor of The Asian Age newspaper and author of a new book, The Shade of Swords, in which he seeks to clairify the meaning of ‘Jihad’. He recently talked with Philosophy Now.
LETTERS
Letters
Invalid Arguments • Warmly Disagreeing • Women’s Rights • Of Guns and Philosophy • God and Meaning
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.
Rightness and Rewards
by Joel Marks
REVIEWS
Closure: A Story of Everything by Hilary Lawson
Sam Nico provides closure on a new book by Hilary Lawson.
Hegel: A Biography by Terry Pinkard
Ralph Blumenau immerses himself in a monumental biography of Hegel by Terry Pinkard.
Metropolis
Fritz Lang’s film Metropolis is a classic thanks to its timeless warning about the perils of technological mastery without social justice, says Scott O’Reilly.
FICTION
Alice in Blunderland
Peter Rickman travels through the looking glass in search of some of philosophy’s pitfalls.
A Case of Fire
by Richard Lawson
How Will God Save the Queen?
by Chengde Chen