phi los o phers’ the

magazine

reporter 4news hound news, plus straw poll and mediawatch

11Baudrillard A tribute to the French master

14chimeraphobia the truth behind scary-sounding research

17word of mouse Luciano Floridi on trading in pixels

18the fi lm farm the magical movies of Dan Cotterill

thoughts 21no future Galen Strawson pens The TPM Essay

issue 38 • 2nd quarter 2007

forum special 39the making of minds revealing intellectual autobiography from 15 leading philosophers

40 Ronald Aronson 42 Simon Blackburn 44 Alain de Botton 45 David Cooper 46 Raimond Gaita 49 Eve Garrard 50 Simon Glendinning 53 AC Grayling 55 Stephen Law 57 Genevieve Lloyd 59 Michael Martin 60 Jeff Mason 63 David Papineau 65 Jonathan Rée 66 Nigel Warburton

the lowdown 78the directory listings for UK and North America

79conceptual carvery three degrees of possibility

80snapshot the lowdown on Leibniz

82pop culture Why Metallica now want justice for all, not just to kill ‘em all

review 86new books On Darwin, Nietzsche, democracy and the comedy of academic life

27sci-phi how emotional are ethical judgements?

29mommy wars working mothers and the good life

33provocations the morality of oversized big sticks

34making history coming to terms with our intellectual past

discussion 68my philosophy debut novelist Lucy Eyre

72head to head Steve Fuller and Alan Haworth debate academic freedom

last words 92Bertrand’s break crossword, cartoon, puzzle and nonsense

94letters strong views from our new blog

96the skeptic why it’s hard to test a psychic

subscribe! see page 74

The Philosophers' Magazine /2nd quarter 2007 It’s not quite our birthday yet, but we feel like starting the party anyway. This autumn, we will celebrate our tenth anniversary. Back in 1997 we were unusual in that we launched our website before the magazine. I remember Jeremy showing me our fi rst homepage, and how I marvelled as Raphael’s “School of Athens” slowly appeared on the monitor, line by line. Now I’d be drubbing my fi ngers tutting about how crappy the dial-up connection was. The pace of change in the worlds of the Internet and publishing stand in stark contrast to philosophy-time. I was recently reading an article by Alex Byrne in the Boston Review when I Boston Review when I Boston Review was struck by a comment about “Philippa Foot’s recent Natural Goodness”. Recent ? That book came Natural Goodness”. Recent ? That book came Natural Goodness”. Recent out in 2001, when iPods were barely a glint in Steve Jobs’ eye and Saddam Hussein was still happily oppressing the people of Iraq. I only found the piece because our deputy editor Ophelia posted it on TPM Online ’s news feed, which uses RSS, another recent innovation

phi los o phers’ the phi los o phers’ the phi los o phers’ magazine phi los o phers’ magazine phi los o phers’

98 Mulgrave Road, Sutton, Surrey SM2 6LZ, UK Tel: 020 8643 1504 Fax: 0709 237 6412 editor@philosophers.co.uk www.philosophersnet.com

Editors Julian Baggini (print edition) Jeremy Stangroom (new media) Deputy editor Ophelia Benson Reviews Editor Jonathan Derbyshire reviews@philosophers.co.uk

Contributing Editors Susan Dwyer, Simon Eassom, Peter Fosl, Michael LaBossiere, Jeff Mason, Christopher Norris, Christian Perring

Illustrations/Graphics Felix Bennett (cover), Jerry Bird, Pipo di Bressana, Michael LaBossiere, Gareth Southwell.

Contributors’ Notes Contact the editor to submit proposals. Please do not send unsolicited man u scripts.

Contributors Ronald Aronson, Simon Blackburn, Alain de Botton, Peter Cave, David Cooper, Anthony Cox, Robert A Delfi no, Luciano Floridi, Peter S Fosl, Steve Fuller, Raimond Gaita, Eve Garrard, Simon Glendinning, AC

which for many has become part and parcel of daily life. To this we have just added a blog – a little late in the day you might think, since the term “weblog”, of which blog is of course a contraction, was fi rst coined in December of our debut year. So you can see how in some ways we’re battling to keep time to two different clocks. We have to move on as a publication, because the world in which we have to survive doesn’t stand still. But the displine we cover moves much more slowly, and it would be crazy to pretend otherwise. The tension seems easily managed by many people of a philosophical bent. Sure, there are luddites among us, for whom mobile telephonic devices are far too new-fangled and the interwebthingy is just perplexing. But I know many philosophiles who love both the dynamism of modern life and the more sedate progress of philosophical thought. May we continue to offer you plenty of both.

Grayling, Douglas Groothuis, Wendy Grossman, Alan Haworth, Mathew Iredale, Jean Kazez, Douglas Kellner, Michael LaBossiere, Stephen Law, Chris Lawn, Tim Lewens, Genevieve Lloyd, Michael Martin, Jeff Mason, Tristan Moyle, David Papineau, Nina Power, Jonathan Rée, Galen Strawson, Mark Vernon, Nigel Warburton

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With thanks to George Leaman, The Rainnies, Pam Swope.

Subscriptions UK: 01442 879097 North America: 1 800 444 2419 See page 74 for full details

© 2007, The Philosophers’ Magazine and contributors ISSN 1354-814X All views expressed in The Philosophers’ Magazine represent those of the authors of each article and do not necessarily refl ect those of the editors or publishers.

The Philosophers' Magazine /2nd quarter 2007