The International Journal of Philosophical Studies is a relaunch of Philosophical Studies, a journal founded in Ireland in 1951. The new journal contains articles, short and long book reviews (the latter are called "critical notices") and the occasional obituary. Its contents would be fully understood and enjoyed only by experts in the field, since some philosophers write in a technical way and like to shoot off into outer intellectual space. Occasionally, there is a special issue dedicated to a past master. One such investigates the transcendental idealism of Kant. Only serious students of philosophy can be expected to enjoy reading this material. Nonetheless, most of the critical notices and book reviews are intelligible to an educated layman.

This journal is among the best in the field along with Inquiry and The Canadian Journal of Philosophy. An outstanding feature is its coverage of continental philosophy, which has been long dismissed, with some justification, as metaphysical nonsense dressed up as wisdom, although the Catholic universities in America have always taken it seriously. There are excellent articles on major continental figures such as Heidegger, Sartre, Foucault, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and on others less well known. Some of them have a flamboyant aphoristic style that makes their claims less susceptible to philosophical analysis.

A professed editorial aim is to promote dialogue between the "analytic" (Anglo-German, American and Scandinavian) and the "continental" European styles of philosophy. The line of distinction here is in any case fluctuating and dubious. A logician such as Frege is recognised as having influenced both schools. In one issue, there is a piece examining Sartre's contribution to the debate between realists and idealists, a traditional metaphysical debate between those who think that the familiar material world is dependent for its existence on minds and those, the realists, who deny this view.

A continental philosopher is here taken seriously and judged neither with prejudicial rigour nor with a patronising lenience. There is an admirable attempt to integrate two philosophical methods.

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Take a representative issue. Simon Critchley asks: "What is continental philosophy?" There are articles on Wittgenstein and Kant. The final piece is "Common sense and Berkeley's perception by suggestion". The "critical notice", by Vasilis Politis, concerns two recent books offering a commentary on Kant's ethics. There follow a dozen book reviews, including "new books on the philosophy of religion", an area of philosophy that is not ignored by the editor. In the aftermath of logical positivism, many thinkers had dismissed philosophy of religion as a soft area in favour of the hard-core disciplines of metaphysics, logic, and epistemology. There follow a few "books briefly noted", followed by the usual list of "books received" and "announcements".

Some issues attempt to redress a previous imbalance against the continental schools. One of these has four papers on Heidegger and Foucault, another paper on Rousseau sensationally entitled "Rousseau's women" and a piece on the philosophy of science. One of the articles on Heidegger is translated from the French by the editor. All this gives the journal a European feel. Fortunately, the book review section is more balanced, with (again) "new books on the philosophy of religion", reviews of books on political philosophy and a review of a book on Wittgenstein. The Wittgenstein reviewer has a memorable name: Flash Q. Fiasco. There are also books on feminism, albeit more briefly noted.

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To date, there have been no articles on Jewish and Islamic philosophy. Although the editor's ambition is to cover "aspects of the entire history of western philosophy", there is nothing on Judaeo-Islamic philosophy. Unlike Hindu or Chinese philosophy, Islamic philosophy is part of the western tradition. For example, Averroes (ibn Rushd in Arabic) was a commentator on Aristotle and influenced the intellectual development of Christian thinkers such as Aquinas, whose work is of course discussed here. Islamic philosophy was inspired by the translation of Greek philosophical texts into Arabic; it was then transmitted to the West with important improvements during what were the Middle Ages for the Christian West. The September 1996 issue lists the Routledge History of Islamic Philosophy under "books received" but there has been no review thus far. The journal has carried an advert from a scholarly press informing us of a book by Aquinas against Averroes. Again, no review. I suggest a special issue on Jewish-Islamic philosophy, much of which resembles the output of the analytical school.

Overall, I could feel no new western philosophical movements emerging. Everyone is living off the capital of the great thinkers of the past. I think that studying the history of philosophy is in general a waste of time. Modern philosophers read into great texts their own subtleties and preferred opinions and then attribute these to their philosophical heroes. Aristotle, for example, got virtually everything wrong, but he has many admirers. Like scripture, the works of great philosophers can be interpreted to mean anything. Paradoxically, the more opaque a work, the greater its influence. Wittgenstein, the last philosopher in whom there was still the possibility of what in previous ages was called wisdom, receives much detailed attention. The very first volume announces the opening of the Wittgenstein Archives at the University of Bergen in Norway. For Wittgenstein, philosophy was a part of life, not theoretical knowledge. That is why it was messy and unsystematic. "Philosophy," he said, "leaves everything as it is". There is no progress.

Shabbir Akhtar is writing a biography of St Paul.