Proceedings and Addresses of the APA, 69:5, May, 1996, p. 150 (complete text) To the Editor: In response to a lack of public understanding of philosophy, reaffirmed in statements in the "Issues in the Profession" section of the November 1995 APA Proceedings, I recommend that the APA investigate the feasibility of a popular magazine, high in quality and accessibility, devoted to philosophy and philosophical analysis of contemporary issues. Other professions do so, and I believe that such a venture in philosophy has been started elsewhere. We all know of the large number of excellent articles and books in recent philosophy that could easily engage a broad audience. Some already have, at least in other academic disciplines. These works are clear, cogent, gripping, and as jargon free as brevity permits. They make palpable progress in grappling with difficult issues of interest well outside our profession. The work is mainly in ethics and applied ethics, but far from limited to it, and it involves the best members of our field. Rather than belabor the point or involve myself in needless controversy, I will not offer examples or name names. Instead, I want to highlight a different source of evidence favoring the prospects for such a venture. The evidence is even more familiar, though less salient. It is evidence that we have all found in teaching philosophy (and sometimes in giving talks to groups outside of the university). When our teaching goes well, the students experience it as surprise, and it is fairly unique to philosophy. The surprise i am thinking of is not that of students unexpectedly to grasp a difficult idea or argument, which, though welcome is indistinguishable from similar responses in other areas. This success is of a kind that is familiar and expected. The surprise that I associate with philosophy stems from false conceptions of the subject itself, courses which students take with hardly any previous study. Philosophical questions, especially ones of value, turn out, far from being matters of opinion or unconstrained speculation, susceptible to refinement, imaginative investigation, careful analysis, fruitful argument and advance, if not resolution. Probably, it is a kind of surprise that first attracted many of us to philosophy. Of course, many students do not experience this surprise. But the negative cases hardly matter. The successes alone indicate a fund of largely untapped interest Jonathan E. Adler Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center, C.U.N.Y.