We live in an age of big science. But 2014 was the year that philosophy fought back. The year began on IAI News with Peter Hacker’s agenda-setting Why Study Philosophy? In it, he argued that philosophy is the only discipline able to patrol the borders between sense and nonsense. Philosophy’s great task, he writes, “is to function as a Tribunal of Sense”. Only philosophy can decide what makes sense, not science.

Two interviews on IAI News provide exemplary illustrations of Hacker’s argument. First, we spoke to the ever-combative Mary Midgley about the materialist dogma that dominates much of modern scientific thinking. Second, Lou Marinoff and Beatrice Popescu discussed why philosophy is essential on a practical level – especially in the complex field of mental health.