From Kritika & Kontext, a special issue on Richard Rorty, including Richard Rorty on democracy and philosophy; "We anti-foundationalists": A response by Béla Egyed; and a rejoinder by Rorty; Richard Rorty can be placed alongside Hume, Montaigne, and Wittgenstein in a tradition of dissident philosophy: All wanted to put an end to the traditional philosophical discussion, but have become, in one way or another, part of the occidental philosophical establishment; and in a fundamentally non-philosophical age, Richard Rorty offered a fast and easy solution to a fundamental philosophical question: His critique of universalism constituted a liberation but left no alternative to moral ethnocentrism
From Edge, Freeman Dyson on Heretical Thoughts About Science and Society. Is the mind physical? Can we explain all human conscious experience in terms of physical events? An interview with David Papineau. From The Global Spiral, Eugen Zelenak (CUR): A Problem for the Kantian-style Critique of the Traditional Metaphysics; Stephen G. Post (Case Western): It’s Good to be Good: How Benevolent Emotions and Actions Contribute to Health; John D. Caputo (Villanova): Richard Rorty (1931-2007): In Memoriam; a review of God and Contemporary Science by Philip Clayton; and a review of Genes, Genesis and God: Values and Their Origins in Nature and Human History by Holmes Rolston.
Life From the Oldest Ice? Team claims to have resurrected microbes from 8-million-year-old Antarctic samples. New research suggests that ancient marine arthropods called trilobites exhibited more within-species morphological variation early in their history than later on. From Skeptic, Frans de Waal responds to a recent New Yorker article on bonobos. Language of the Apes: A review of The First Word by Christine Kenneally. New fossils illustrate "Bushiness" of human evolution: Fossils support the separate evolution of Homo habilis and Homo erectus, point to a gorillalike social structure for the latter. Is the Out of Africa theory out? An examination of over 5,000 teeth from early human ancestors shows that many of the first Europeans probably came from Asia.
