Issues
Issue 73: May/June 2009
EDITORIAL
The Spirit of Comics
by Charles Natoli
NEWS
News: May/June 2009
Website digests philosophy papers • Teaching schoolchildren to think better • Philosopher Marjorie Grene dies, aged 98 — News reports by Sue Roberts
COMICS
Comics and Philosophy
John Lent explores three dimensions of philosophy in 2D comics.
Thinking Comics with Danny Fingeroth
John Shelton Lawrence asks analyser of comics and the former editor of the Spider-Man range of titles what makes a superhero, philosophically speaking.
THE CREDIT CRUNCH
Crisis
Yahia Lababidi stoically responds to the crunch in Daoist fashion.
Don’t Blame Adam Smith
Toni Vogel Carey says Smith never wanted the free market to be freely corrupt.
Forever Blowing Bubbles
Mike Fuller on the circular cause of the credit crunch.
ARTICLES
Hitting Bedrock, Practicing Ethics
The birth of his son forces Miguel Martinez-Saenz to find out if being philosophical helps when it really matters.
The Question of the Meaning of Life: Answerable or Unanswerable?
Jeffrey Gordon wonders what it would mean to have meaning.
What Would Make The Best Society?
The following answers to this central philosophical question each win a random book.
CROSSWORD
Crossword
Our twenty-seventh super-sophisticated semantic square, squashed sequentially by Deiradiotes.
INTERVIEWS
Frank McLaughlin
Frank McLaughlin has worked on wellknown American newspaper strips including Nancy, Brenda Starr and Gil Thorp, and was a regular inker for Marvel and DC. His latest project with long time collaborator Dick Giordano is the graphic novel White Viper, which can be seen at ComicMix.com. He also teaches at Paier College in Connecticut. Jeff McLaughlin talks to him.
Michael Uslan
Michael Uslan is the executive producer of the Batman movies and is bringing other characters to the big screen. He donated his 45,000 comic book collection to Indiana University as a ‘thank you’ for his education. Jeff McLaughlin talks to him.
LETTERS
Letters
Robotic Responses • Beware of Derrida • The Myth Of The Myth • Swan And On • Suffering Is Good Shock • Mary Midgley Matters • Defending Dennett
COLUMNS
Dear Socrates
Having traveled from the turn of the Fourth Century B.C. to the turn of the Twenty-First Century 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.
Pekaresque Adventures
Tim Madigan on aesthetics and identity in American Splendor.
Kant By Default (Shameless Commerce Division)
by Joel Marks
Why I Am An Atheist
Raymond Tallis examines his happy disbelief.
REVIEWS
Education’s End: Why Our Colleges And Universities Have Given Up On The Meaning of Life by Anthony Kronman
Mark Huston ponders Anthony Kronman’s arguments about why universities don’t teach the meaning of life.
Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman
Nick DiChario finds out what it’s like to be the bad guy.
The Death Of Socrates: Hero, Villain, Chatterbox, Saint by Emily Wilson
Alan Brody considers whether Socrates really was a philosophy hero.
The Dark Knight
Todd Walters reports on justice, rebellion and random acts of violence in Gotham City.
FICTION
The Lost Dialogues: Mr Socrates
Michael Katz overhears Socrates’ private dialectic.