Issues
Issue 56: July/August 2006
EDITORIAL
The Big ‘H’
by Rick Lewis
NEWS
News: July/August 2006
Ancient Philosophical Question Answered • Voltaire Worth 5 Joyces • Philosophy TV on net • Torture Doesn’t Work • Apes To Have Rights? — News reports by Sue Roberts in London and John Ruddy in New York
HERESY
Fundamentals, Islamists and the West
Imadaldin Al-Jubouri considers how some Muslim fundamentalists justify their aggressiveness – by misreading the Qur’an, among other things.
Heavenly Eviction
John Donnelly reminds us that people are only tenants in Heaven by the grace of God.
Phenomenology as a Mystical Discipline
Colin Wilson explores the more provocative side of existentialism.
Spinoza: Cursed be he by day; and cursed be he by night
Three hundred and fifty years ago, Spinoza was excommunicated. This affords Peter Cave the excuse to remind us of this most tolerant philosopher – of his life, metaphysics and humanity.
The End of Suffering
Pleasure for the People! Katherine Power considers whether there should be more opiates for the masses (including opium?), but settles for nuts and seeds.
The Truth about Heresy?
Grant Bartley lays down the law in favour of the ‘right’ sort of heresy.
William of Ockham: Defending the Church, Condemning the Pope
Ian Smith on why Ockham thought the Pope wasn’t a Catholic.
ARTICLES
Biotechnologies: Tweaking Here, Tuning There. Is that all we need?
Following on from last issue’s focus on medical ethics and bioethics, Inmaculada de Melo-Martín says we aren’t thinking deeply enough about what the problems with bioethics really are.
Stoicism: Heroic Acceptance
William Lewis tells us the Graeco-Roman way to keep a stiff upper lip.
What is Responsibility?
Hans Lenk relates to different types of responsibility.
OBITUARIES
Ken Knisely (1957-2005)
George Leaman remembers a friend.
CROSSWORD
Crossword
Our tenth tendentious trial of tenacious talent tacked together by the tongue-twistingly terrifying Deiradiotes.
LETTERS
Letters
Straussed Out • Mill’s Principle Pleasures? • The ‘I’s Don’t Have It • Thought and Feeling • Literally Philosophical • Fibonacci Sequels
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.
Luck and Punishment
by Joel Marks
REVIEWS
The Pornography of Meat by Carol Adams
Lisa Kemmerer agrees with Carol Adams about some of the subliminal assumptions advertisers use to sell their wares.
Wittgenstein and Judaism by Ranjit Chatterjee
Ralph Blumenau finds Ranjit Chatterjee sympathetic to Wittgenstein’s Jewish side.
Slacker
Colin Bartie digs the countercultural theme in Slacker and other films by Richard Linklater.
FICTION
Cleft Stick
Adebowale Oriku tells a story about a man who finds it difficult to tell a story.