 If Philosophy and the Physicists was written to guard its readership against imprecise or misleading use of language by scientists, Stebbing’s next major publication had an even more earnest and urgent purpose. Thinking to Some Purpose was published in 1939. It was a direct result of the increasing pressure on Stebbing to become a more prominent commentator on current affairs and to contribute to public intellectual debate; the BBC commissioned a series of talks from Stebbing which she was unable to deliver because of ill health but which she published instead in the newly established Penguin series of “original non-fiction books on contemporary issues”. Although Stebbing was reluctant to play a prominent public role, she was committed to the necessity of academics contributing to the discussion of crucial social and political issues. Thinking to Some Purpose was written before the beginning of the Second World War, but it was produced at a time when Stebbing, like many others, was well aware of the gravity of the national and international situation, and of what was at stake. She was convinced that it was imperative that the electorate, now universally franchised and generally literate, should be equipped to deal with the type of rhetoric that was being directed at them: