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The Role Of The Intellectual, So It Is Said, Is To Speak Truth To Power. Noam Chomsky Has Dismissed This Pious Tag On Two Grounds. For One Thing, Power Knows The Truth Already; It Is Just Busy Trying To Conceal It. For Another, It Is Not Those In Power Who Need The Truth, But Those They Oppress.

One Side-effect Of The So-called War On Terror Has Been A Crisis Of Liberalism. This Is Not Only A Question Of Alarmingly Illiberal Legislation, But A More General Problem Of How The Liberal State Deals With Its Anti-liberal Enemies.

Language, Identity And Forms Of Life Are The Terms In Which Political Demands Are Shaped And Voiced.

All Consciousness Is Consciousness Of Something: In Thinking I Am Aware That My Thought Is 'pointing Towards' Some Object.

To Claim That Science And Religion Pose Different Questions To The World Is Not To Suggest That If The Bones Of Jesus Were Discovered In Palestine, The Pope Should Get Himself Down To The Dole Queue As Fast As Possible. It Is Rather To Claim That While Faith, Rather Like Love, Must Involve Factual Knowledge, It Is Not Reducible To It.