by Joel Marks On 19 January, 1999, I sent an email to one Rick Lewis, Editor of Philosophy Now, inquiring whether the magazine might be in the market for another columnist. A friend of mine had returned from vacation with a copy in hand to show me. I instantly glommed on to it, perceiving a …
Stephen Clark examines how far Aristotle’s concept of friendship might apply to animals, among themselves and between us and them. One of the stories told about Pythagoras is that he rebuked a man who was beating a dog, with the words “That’s a friend of mine – I knew him by his voice.” The story …
“I knew him by his voice”: Can Animals Be Our Friends? Read More »
Jeremy Barris enlists the help of Plato, Ortega and pragmatist philosophy to argue that love at its deepest is our connection with ultimate truth, and that this connection is found in our love for our dogs. If dogs are not our best friends, they are among them. We love them, they love us, and these …
Tim Madigan hears Pierre Bayle’s 17th century plea for religious toleration. “Comets, importing change of times and states,Brandish your crystal tresses in the sky,And with them scourge the bad revolting starsThat have consented unto Henry’s death!King Henry the Fifth, too famous to live long!England ne’er lost a king of so much worth.” – Shakespeare, Henry …
Tim Madigan on what philosophy means to him. “Food, glorious food!What wouldn’t we give forThat extra bit more –That’s all that we live forWhy should we be fated toDo nothing but broodOn food,Magical food,Wonderful food,Marvelous food,Fabulous food!”‘Food, Glorious Food’ from the musical Oliver! It has been my great fortune to write a regular column for …
Scott Remer thinks we arendt happy without a community and considers the complete reconstruction of the modern world to be well worth weil. In her 1951 book The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt, German-Jewish émigré and political theorist extraordinaire, chillingly wrote: “Totalitarian solutions may well survive the fall of totalitarian regimes in the form of …
A Radical Cure: Hannah Arendt & Simone Weil on the Need for Roots Read More »
Thomas Morrison looks hard at Michel Foucault’s problem with science. “… discourses themselves are neither true nor false”(Power/Knowledge, p.118) “The confession [is] the general standard governing the production of the true discourse on sex”(History of Sexuality Vol. I, p.63) Flamboyant French philosopher Michel Foucault (1926-1984) is as well known for his historical analyses of criminality, …
Major Todd A. Burkhardt considers under what circumstances it would be morally right to bioengineer super-soldiers. In 1940, as the United States prepares for war, Steve Rogers, a frail young man unable to enlist in the military due to physical limitations, volunteers for a secret experiment. Operation Rebirth transforms him into the ultimate physical specimen: …
Operation Rebirth: Captain America and the Ethics of Enhancement Read More »
Mike Austin listens to Bono while reading Kierkegaard, and discovers that they have the same soul. The death of his mother had a huge impact on him and on the substance of his writings. He became disenchanted with organized religion, harshly criticizing it while at the same time embracing a personal faith in God. In …
We Get To Carry Each Other: U2 and Kierkegaard on Authentic Love Read More »
Sally Scholz traces the major currents of Simone de Beauvoir’s main work. Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) was one of the twentieth century’s leading intellectuals, and certainly its most famous feminist. Her book The Second Sex radically challenged political and existential theory, but its most enduring impact is on how women understand themselves, their relationships, their …