From The Philosophers' Magazine, Jean Kazez tests Kwame Anthony Appiah, philosophy’s most readable writer; Julian Baggini interviews philosophy’s best kept secret, TM Scanlon; and what is wrong with Socrates? Emily Wilson questions the legend of the wisest man in Athens. A look at how the social psychology revolution is reaching its tipping point. The case against Christopher Hitchens can be summarised, broadly, in a kind of comic list as done by the British satirical magazine Private Eye. From TNR, Leon Wieseltier on Christopher Hitchens, Damien Hirst, and our Golden Age of the Pseudo-Meaningful Stunt; Frank Kermode reviews How Fiction Works by James Wood; and a review of Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean, 400-800 by Chris Wickham and Origins of the European Economy: Communications and Commerce AD 300-900 by Michael McCormick. A review of Outlaw Journalist: The Life and Times of Hunter S. Thompson by Ian Goodwillie. From Guernica, Crisis Darfur: A conversation with Mia Farrow and Bernard-Henri Levy. Joseph Stiglitz on the end of neo-liberalism. From Natural History, a look at how dogs came to run the world. Daniel Gross on the hot business catchphrase of 2008, and what it really means. The latest issue of Edge is out. An article on the future of babies: Artificial wombs and pregnant grandmas.
