Obituary: Richard Rorty, and more and more and more, and an interview with Danny Postel. From Philosophy Bites, Stephen Law, author of The Philosophy Files, The X-Mas Files and The War for Children's Minds, explains the Problem of Evil and gives an original take on this traditional philosophical problem; what can philosophers contribute to public life? Mary Warnock discusses how her training in philosophy prepared her for public roles; and Simon Blackburn, author of Plato's Republic: A Biography, on Plato's image of the cave.
Four small books about four very big books: A review of Plato's Republic: A Biography by Simon Blackburn; The Qu'ran: A Biography by Bruce Lawrence; On The Wealth of Nations: A Biography by P.J. O'Rourke; and Marx's Das Kapital: A Biography by Francis Wheen.
A Zelig among economists: A review of John Kenneth Galbraith: a 20th-Century Life by Richard Parker. eBay-nomics: Modern economists have assumed that people in auctions behave rationally. Then came eBay. A review of A Beautiful Math: John Nash, Game Theory, and the Modern Quest for a Code of Nature, by Tom Siegfried. A review of Numbers and Infinity: A Historical Account of Mathematical Concepts by Ernst Sondheimer and Alan Rogerson. You are looking at an open book: This conceptual pinwheel could change the way we read and retrieve information.
From American Scientist, a review of A New Human: The Startling Discovery and Strange Story of the “Hobbits” of Flores, Indonesia, by Mike Morwood and Penny van Oosterzee; a review of The Lie Detectors: The History of an American Obsession, by Ken Alder; a review of Why Choose This Book?: How We Make Decisions, by Read Montague; a review of Music: A Mathematical Offering, by David J. Benson; a review of Into the Black: JPL and the American Space Program, 1976–2004, by Peter J. Westwick; a review of The Grid: A Journey through the Heart of Our Electrified World, by Phillip F. Schewe; a review of The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History Since 1900, by David Edgerton; and a review of The Volterra Chronicles: The Life and Times of an Extraordinary Mathematician, 1860–1940 by Judith R. Goodstein.
From Think Tank, an interview with Edward O. Wilson on the future of life. Evolution, Religion and Free Will: The most eminent evolutionary scientists have surprising views on how religion relates to evolution. Peter Singer's message is uncomfortable: Most people follow a minimalist morality that makes them a lot more immoral than they consider themselves to be. A review of Autobiography as Philosophy: The Philosophical Uses of Self-Presentation.
Efforts to isolate Zimbabwe's president, Robert Mugabe, intensified yesterday after he was stripped of an honorary degree by Edinburgh University and faced similar action by academics in the US. Drew Gilpin Faust has been called Harvard's "safe" choice to succeed Larry Summers. Now, as she prepares to take office, no one knows what kind of president she will be. But we do know what kind of historian she is, and safe is not the word. From The American Scholar, Love on Campus: Why we should understand, and even encourage, a certain sort of erotic intensity between student and professor. Past Impressions: A look at how prior relationships cast a long shadow over our social lives.
