Issues
Issue 52: August/September 2005
EDITORIAL
Empathy & Imagination
by Rick Lewis
NEWS
News: August/September 2005
Marx Wins BBC ‘Greatest Philosopher’ Poll • Animal minds • Fears for academic freedom • GM monster weed stalks countryside — News reports by Sue Roberts
EMPATHY
Hacking the Brain
Could advances in technology soon give us perfect knowledge of other minds? Bora Dogan investigates.
Physicalism & Empathetic Understanding
Michael Philips argues that the possibility of empathy is incompatible with the idea that the world is physical through and through.
Schopenhauer’s Compassionate Morality
Tim Madigan on the curmudgeon who preached compassion.
The Paradox of Empathy
Ramsey McNabb on knowing how other people feel.
ARTICLES
An Aesthetic Justification of Travel
Lindsay Oishi thinks you should travel to celebrate a particular object of art.
Can Mythology Save the Miraculous?
Stephen Anderson argues that religion isn’t simply a system of profound myths – it relies on making factual claims which are really true.
How To Be Much Cleverer Than All Your Friends (so they really hate you)
Part II: Being a Superbeing. Study Bayes, says Mike Alder. Cont. from Issue 51.
Ricoeur’s Negotiated Settlements
Fred Dallmayr on the conciliatory and original Paul Ricoeur, who died in May.
The Bush Disjunction
Paul Keeling on speech acts louder than words.
The Philosophy of John Lennon
What is it like to be a Beatle? Gary Tillery argues that Lennon’s pronouncements, both cynical and idealistic, reveal a sincere and original thinker.
Willing Slaves
by Richard Taylor
A Practical Role for Philosophy
Peter Bowden argues that it is not a choice between education or training: both are needed, and across every discipline. The problem is that the sciences are providing education as well as training, but that the departments of philosophy are not providing the training.
CROSSWORD
Crossword
The sixth philosophical brain-twister from the ever-inspired Deiradiotes.
LETTERS
Letters
The Liar Paradox • Unsympathetic Review • Kierkegaardian Waffle • Calling for a Spade • Natural Response • Not the End of Theology • Neuroses and Fallacies • What’s Demeaning of This? • Virtue is its Own Reward • Research Strategies
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.
Showdown
by Joel Marks
REVIEWS
Blackwell Companion to the Philosophy of Education
John Mann finds his encounter with a Blackwell Companion most educational.
History of Islamic Philosophy by I.M.N. Al-Jubouri
Antony Flew notices a new book on Islamic Philosophy.
The Oxford Handbook of Aesthetics
Peter Rickman is inspired with beautiful thoughts by the Oxford Handbook of Aesthetics.
The Schopenhauer Cure by Irvin Yalom
Andrew Barley enters group therapy with Irvin Yalom.
Bright Leaves
Thomas Wartenberg thinks about how real life keeps on breaking through as he watches Bright Leaves.
FICTION
Philosophy: The Video Game
Shannon Kincaid test drives.
The Philosopher’s Cellphone
by Mark Silcox