Your complimentary articles

You’ve read all of your complimentary articles for this month. To have complete access to the thousands of philosophy articles on this site, please

If you are a subscriber please sign in to your account.

To buy or renew a subscription please visit the Shop.

If you are a print subscriber you can contact us to create an online account.

Editorial

We’ve Got Issues!

by Rick Lewis

“What I understand by ‘philosopher’: a terrible explosive in the presence of which everything is in danger.”
Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo.

“The trouble with philosophy is that it has nothing to do with the real world!”, barked my interlocutor, Harry Madeup-Name, as he leaned against the bar at the golf club and ordered yet another round. “What does it have to say about things that really matter?”, he added, sliding majestically to the floor. I confess that I said nothing – partly because of the fifteen pints of Old Peculiar that I had just sunk, and partly because the entire incident was an invention anyway, and why should I bother arguing with a figment of my imagination?

Anyway, if the incident had been real, I might have responded that philosophy has plenty to say about controversies that are the subject of widespread public concern.

…