Gianluca Di Muzio develops a novel objection to theism.

Thinking Tools is a regular feature that introduces pointers on thinking clearly and rigorously.

Brenda Watson asks where moral and religious indoctrination ends and education begins, and tackles the arguments of some liberals (myself included).

In this article, Sandis defends four of the most notorious doctrines which Plato attributes to Socrates. The first is the ‘theory’ of forms, the second is the doctrine of recollection, the third Socrates'contention that philosophers ought to be the guardian-kings of the ideal state, and the fourth his rejection of rhetoric. Sandis does not claim that his interpretation (which owes a lot to Wittgenstein) is correct, but only that it renders the doctrines both relevant and plausible.

Matthew Flannagan explains why Christians can consistently both oppose abortion and support the death penalty.

James Warren responds to Sandis's preceding article.

Reginald Williams offers a novel approach to the problem of evil.

John Shand also critically discusses Sandis' preceding paper.

What is ‘life-long learning’ and why should we suppose it a good thing?

Tim Crane responds to the several recent attacks on religion made by Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, et al.

Can you know something that isn't true?

Settling definitions is often seen as a central tool for clarifying concepts, and answering ‘What is X?’ questions. Examples might be ‘What is knowledge?’, ‘What is a work of art?’ or ‘What is a dog?’. A common way of answering such questions is by formulating necessary and sufficient conditions for a thing to be of a certain sort. It is this form of real definition that is of concern here.

Brian Ribeiro offers a sketch of a new theory of humour, pitched at roughly the same level of detail, and intended to have roughly the same level of inclusiveness, as the other available philosophical ‘theories’ of humour.

A dialogue on the puzzle of mental causation.

This challenging paper presents an ingenious argument a for functionalist theory of mind.

In a 1987 paper Thomas Morris introduced the phrase ‘perfect being theology’ and argued that in our efforts to construct an adequate theistic conception of God the most fruitful procedure will be for us to engage in reflection and dialogue about what a maximally perfect being would be like (‘Perfect Being Theology,’ Nous 21:19–30). To some of us that approach seems so obvious as to be without a significant alternative, but there are other approaches that have been followed – such as working up a conception of God solely from the statements in a purported repository of divine revelation, such as the Bible (for example, when I was in seminary in Yale Divinity School in the early 1960's, ‘biblical theology’ was the rage and ‘philosophical theology’ was looked down upon). Another approach has been to study a wide range of religious scriptures to see what common conception of the divine can be found in them or most plausibly constructed from them. Those approaches, Morris said, have left us with something unsatisfactorily incomplete, static, and perhaps self-contradictory. Morris argued, a la St. Anselm and René Descartes, that the notion of a maximally perfect being is the north star that has been at the heart of the theistic traditions of the world, and it is that notion that we must explore and elaborate in order that we might construct an adequate conception of God. I agree.

‘That's true-for-you, but not true-for-me.’ Are there any truths for which this is, indeed, true?