Issues
Issue 42: July/August 2003
EDITORIAL
Spooky Stories
by Rick Lewis
NEWS
News: July/August 2003
Plato Found in California • Cloned Racehorses Gallop Nearer • “Daddy Was a Website” • Aborted Fetuses to be Mothers — News reports by Sue Roberts in London and Lisa Sangoi in New York
PHILOSOPHY & THE PARANORMAL
Astral Projection and Out of Body Experiences
Joe Fearn asks whether the idea of out of body experiences is intelligible.
Philosophy & Divination
Trevor Curnow compares the reliability of oracles ancient and modern.
The Paranormal, Urban Legends and Critical Thinking
Tim Madigan takes time out to tell some high school students a no-ghost story.
What is Materialism?
Michael Philips on the shaky foundations of the most popular philosophical theory of modern times.
Why You Can’t Read My Mind
We had no idea that Paul MacDonald intended to write this article.
ARTICLES
Designing Androids
Antoni Diller says that robots must be taught how to learn.
Happiness, Death & the Remainder of Life
Laurence Goldstein conducts a little thought experiment.
Hegel and the Trinity
Peter Benson explains why Hegel was obsessed with the number three.
How to Get Real
Is Postmodernism finally on its deathbed? Roger Caldwell examines the evidence and takes a look at its would-be successor: Critical Realism.
Judging Saddam’s Pictures
Stuart Greenstreet on how to justify your taste in art.
OBITUARIES
Bernard Williams (1929-2003)
by A. W. Moore
INTERVIEWS
Susan Blackmore
Susan Blackmore is a well-known cognitive scientist, psychologist, lecturer and author. She has just written a textbook on consciousness. Rick Lewis asked her about her journey from parapsychology to the study of consciousness.
LETTERS
Letters
Euthanasia and Taboos • Nietzsche’s Madness • Logic is Above Gender • Stoics and Gladiators • Boxers & Philosophers • Boxers & Philosophers • Sports and Deviance • Change or Progress in Sport • Cheat to Win?
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.
An Immortal Pair Passes
by Joel Marks
REVIEWS
The Structure of Thinking by Laura Weed
Scott O’Reilly gets quite excited about a new book on the nature of the mind by Laura Weed.
Zeno and the Tortoise by Nicholas Fearn
Adam Carter browses through Nicholas Fearn’s introduction to philosophy for bartenders who wear baseball caps.
The Matrix Reloaded
Our movie maestro Thomas Wartenberg plugs himself into The Matrix Reloaded but says that philosophically, it was destined to be dull.
FICTION
Of Men and Mice
by Roger Caldwell
Descartes Was Right!
A short story by Katherine Power.