ThPhilosoJ!hers'

Magazine issue ten • spring 2000

contents

NEWS AND FEATURES

6 NEWS HOUND Stories you may have missed, including withdrawn books, euthanasia and bestsellers

8 OPINION Brian Leiter's regular column plus guest comment from Martin Cohen

9 MEDIA WATCH Philosophy and philosophers in the mass media

11 TEACHING THINKING Joseph Chandler How critical thinking has found its way into class rooms - but with philosophers left outside

13 IN AT THE DEEP END Jeremy Hayward and Gerald Jones Is activity-centred teaching the way ahead?

ESSAYS

15 DEGRADATION Jim McManus A front-line view of the issues of prisons and degradation raised in TPMB

Emotions, p19

17 JE DEFENDS BERGSON John Mullarkey Why the French thinker does not deserve ridicule

19 THE EMOTIONS Paul Harkin Reason's old enemy is being taken seriously again

DISCUSSION

23 OPEN DEBATE: WHY IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO BE MORAL Steve Schwartz Your responses are invited to this challenging essay 28 DISCOURSE: EVOLUTIONARY EXPLANATIONS John Dupre and Dylan Evans lock horns in debate

CONFER.ENCE BIfUEFING

30 STYLE IN PHILOSOPHY Two days of style and substance?

THE Pt·m..OSOPHERS' REvmeW 54 New publications reviewed including

DEPENDENT RATIONAL ANIMALS Alasdair Macintyre Peg Tittle

HUME ON KNOWLEDGE Harold Noonan Dale Jacquette

ENVIRONMENT AND PHILOSOPHY Vernon Pratt Simon Eassom

CRITICAL THINKING IN ETHICS Anne Thomson lyn May

Style conference, p30

contents /5

COVER STORY: FORUM

NANDRELI J N

,

.1\ Wid~-tanging look at the s(lmetimes uneasy relationship

. between faith and rationaUty.
INTERVIEWS DON.CUPITT JuJianBaggini RUSSEll STANNARO Jeremy Stangroom ALVINPLANTINGA Peter Fosl PETE.R VARDY Julian 8aggini

ARTICLES INTRODUCTION Roy Ja.ckson THE IRRATIONALITY OF BELIEF Anthony Flew ISLAM AND PHILOSOPHY Sa.jjad Rizvi

Picture: Penitents,Easterprocession, Balmaseda, Basque Country

IN BRIEF Richard Paul Hamilton, Elizabeth Hodge, Sajjad Rizvi

PRIMER.S Short articles on the basics

60 SNAPSHOTS THOMAS AQUINAS Jon Phelan KARL MARX Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay

REGULARS 21 PHILOSOPHY@1HE.lNTERNET Jeremy Stangroom The best of the web

22 SCi-PH! Mathew Iredaie Should we listen to common sense?

27 THE CUN~C Tim Lebon Philosophical counselling

59 DARRYL'S DIARY Darryl Staflund Philosophy events

62 BERTRAND'S BREAK Pondweed, Stamp, Q&A plus the concise or cryptic prize crossword

64 LETTERS

66 THE SKEPTIC Wendy Grossman Millennial yawns

The Philosophers' Magazine/Spring 2000