In Think 7, Nigel Warburton attacked Pascal's famous wager on the existence of God. Here, Douglas Groothuis resurrects Pascal to defend the wager.

Thinking Tools is a regular feature that introduces pointers on thinking clearly and rigorously. In this installment, we focus, not on faulty reasoning per se, but on an example of how we can be led astray or manipulated without our even realizing what is going on. Our critical faculties are entirely sidestepped!

Look at any investment advertisement and you will encounter: PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUIDE TO FUTURE PERFORMANCE. This statement is a tribute to the power of the Financial Services Authority. Let us see how past performance plays with those down on the farm.

Vamsi Chinthapalli introduces some of the most common fallacies.

Al Martinich explains Hobbes' view on how the rights of the individual are to be balanced against the need for government.

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

Chris Horner opens our debate on pragmatism with this handy introduction to the subject. Those entirely new to the topic of pragmatism might also find helpful Stephen Law's article ‘Is it all relative?’ (see issue 2 of Think).

Stephen Mulhall explains and assesses some of the ‘communitarian’ criticisms of liberalism.

In this regular series Michael Clark, editor of the journal Analysis, presents a number of he most intriguing philosophical paradoxes.

Neil Gascoigne explains the pragmatist attitude to science, contrasting it with both the realism of scientists like Susan Greenfield and Richard Dawkins, and the anti-realism of sociologists like Harry Collins.

By ‘applying ethics’, do philosophers actually succeed in corrupting philosophy?

The film The Matrix is a riproaring adventure. Its plot owes a great deal to Descartes.

The following is a transcript of a discussion about the question ‘What is Pragmatism?’ between Richard Rorty, Hilary Putnam, and James Conant. The discussion was part of a series of discussions on more or less philosophical subjects broadcast on Chicago Public Radio. This discussion is anchored by Gretchen Helfrich. Two listeners (Chris and Edwin) also took part.

I thank the participants for making the material available for a wider audience. I have deleted some passages in order to fit the space available for this subject (a nearly complete version appears in the next volume of The Wittgenstein Studies). I have tried to keep the character of a discussion. However, a transcript can hardly display the fine nuances of spoken words—and there are indeed some such nice nuances. However, the most important points were, of course, kept. How to think about them — that is up to the reader.

Richard Raatzsch, University of Leipzig, July 2004

Further note from Stephen Law: readers should be aware that this transcript has been edited. Some material — words, phrases, and passages — has been removed. Italicizations are my own.

Timothy O'Hagan explores some of the apparent paradoxes in the writings of Rousseau.

If, as Locke believed, our words stand for Ideas hidden away inside our minds, how do we know that we all mean the same thing by them?

This article was first presented as a lecture. In it, Hilary Putnam sets out what he thinks is unique about pragmatism, and also what he believes is valuable in it.

Is it right for a wife to take sperm from a dying husband in order to create a child posthumously? Daniel Sokol discusses a recent case.

Three students, namely Walid, a Druze man, Fatimah, a Muslim woman and Sigal, a secular Jewish woman are eating lunch in the cafeteria at the Western Galilee Academic College.

In this regular series Michael Clark, editor of the journal Analysis, presents a number of the most intriguing philosophical paradoxes. Here we examine the paradox of the gods.