So begins a recent ontological argument. But what if there are no most perfect beings? Letting God be one, that is, letting “God” name one at the very beginning seems premature. Clearly it is best to leave “God” out of the argument until one is in a position to introduce him by existential instantiation, or, by further argumentation, to identify him with a most perfect being: clearly it is best to leave “God” out of the argument until it has been established that there is a most perfect being.

L'étude que nous proposons ici a fait l'objet d'une communication au dernier Congrès de l'Hegelgesellschaft (Athènes, avril 1982). Elle était en vérité un peu extérieure au thème central de ce congrès, qui avait choisi de méditer sur le Weltgeist. Mais nous en avions maintenu la présentation pour deux raisons essentielles, où, selon une combinaison en un sens très hégélienne, l'accidentel se mêlait au rationnel, le «Zufallige» au «vernunftige». L'accidentel résidait dans le fait que l'objet de cette étude correspondait à nos travaux du moment sur les catégories hégéliennes et kantiennes. Le rationnel pouvait s'exprimer en une remarque toute simple: c'est dans le Rapport absolu, l'«absolutes Verhältnis», que s'achève, dans la dialectique hégélienne, la constitution logique du «Welt» et que s'opère l'«Aufhebung» de la sphère de l'objectivité à celle de la subjectivité et du concept, où se définit la figure du «Geist».

Some have argued that because factually meaningful assertions must be falsifiable, putative theistic assertions such as “God loves us” are not meaningful because they are not falsifiable. It is further suggested that every attempt to make a factually significant theistic assertion founders on the same shoal of falsifiability.

L'astrologie, affirme Francis Bacon, «est tellement infectée de superstitions qu'on a peine à y trouver quelque chose de sain». A la différence de l'astronomie, qui est «assez bien fondée sur les phénomènes; mais [qui] s'élève peu, et manque tout à fait de solidité», Bacon estime que l'astrologie «en bien des choses … manque même de fondement». Tout en soulignant que certaines parties doivent en être retenues et épurées, Bacon en rejette l'essentiel comme «extravagances astrologiques». Mais comment au juste l'astronomie se différencie-t-elle de l'essentiel de l'astrologie? Que veut dire Bacon lorsqu'il affirme que l'astrologie est sans fondement et remplie de superstition? Le problème philosophique tient à ce que, en dépit de la vraisemblance des remarques de Bacon, il ne semble y avoir aucun moyen satisfaisant pour distinguer des parodies de science de la science authentique. Science et pseudoscience diffèrent en espèce, pense-t-on, mais la réflexion philosophique semble révéler qu'au mieux elles diffèrent en degrés.

More nonsense, in my view, has been purveyed in print about Wittgenstein than about any other recent philosopher. Moreover, of this nonsense a great deal has been about Wittgenstein's notion of “criterion”. I have read, therefore, with an immense lightening of the spirit two recent studies of precisely this notion, each of which is both thorough and fundamentally sensitive to central elements of Wittgenstein's later thought which most philosophers, admirers as well as critics, have missed. Part One of Stanley Cavell's monumental The Claim of Reason deploys Wittgenstein's notion of “criterion” with telling effect in the initial exposition of Cavell's general view of human knowledge. John Canfield's Wittgenstein: Language and World is a very detailed and systematic presentation of Wittgenstein's notion of “criterion” itself, together with Canfield's reasons for judging it so important. The two books complement each other very well. There are differences between them as well as similarities, differences not merely of emphasis and nuance but of doctrine. As will emerge in subsequent pages, I believe Cavell's to be the deeper and subtler work. But Cavell's book is relatively inaccessible to those who do not have already some acquaintance with Wittgenstein's later thought and have not already made some attempt to think that thought for themselves (and parts of it are still inaccessible even to those who have!).

The relation of will to belief is an issue of perennial philosophical and religious interest. Most of the classical accounts of religious belief, both ancient and modern, have accorded the will an important, if not the decisive, role. In the philosophy of mind, the issue has traditionally been one of the major dividing lines, some philosophers arguing a position near that of Descartes, that the will is a constituent element of belief, others siding with Spinoza and Hume, arguing that it is not. But what really is the issue? Much recent discussion of belief and will has been devoted to the question whether we can believe at will apart from any sort of evidence—what has been called belief by fiat. While it may be that this is the most natural interpretation of the claim that belief is based on will, it is certainly not the only one. What is more, most of those who have argued for the importance of the will in belief have never really asserted it. No doubt, one can glean statements from their writings that seem to suggest it; but with due allowance for rhetorical excess, a careful reading of their positions will, I think, show that they were really dealing with other issues. What I hope to accomplish in raising again the issue of will and belief is to advance and defend a set of claims that gets at these other issues. Throughout, my concern will be primarily with religious beliefs, and this not simply out of personal and professional interest, but because the issues I want to discuss arise more clearly (though by no means exclusively) in relation to beliefs of this sort.

In the sixth chapter of his Theory of Knowledge Roderick Chisholm refers to an example suggested by Alexius Meinong in order to show that the traditional definition of knowledge is in need of some modification. In this paper I should like to show that Chisholm's argument rests on a mistaken assumption as to what an individual's doxastic responsibilities are.

William Newton-Smith is a fine young Canadian philosopher of science who has spent the last decade in productive thought at Balliol, Oxford. His new work, The Rationality of Science, follows hot on the heels of his other book, The Structure of Time (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980). And with them he establishes himself as a major force to be reckoned with in philosophical circles.

Scientific realism at least in large measure reflects the conviction that physics limns the true nature of reality; that it is the right metaphysical picture of things. This conviction is in turn a product of the failure of positivism's attempt to expunge metaphysics from the corpus of philosophically respectable activities. Since natural science is objective knowledge of the world par excellence post-positivists have embraced it as the ontology which their predecessors had failed to make unnecessary. Scientific realism is metaphysics, shameless or unashamed.

In the first chapter of Karl Marx's Theory of History, G. A. Cohen contrasts Marx's image of history with Hegel's, contrasts, that is, a powerful form of historical idealism with historical materialism. Historical idealism stresses the “dominion of thought” (Gedankenherrschaft); social change, on such an account, is to be explained principally in terms of changes in consciousness, the course of history being determined by fundamental ruling ideas and conceptions. This view is to be contrasted with historical materialism. The central vision of history in Hegel is formulated as follows by Cohen, “History is the history of the world spirit (and, derivatively of human consciousness) which undergoes growth in self-knowledge, the stimulus and vehicle of which is a culture, which perishes when it has stimulated more growth than it can contain” (26). Marx's vision, a historical materialist vision, is identical in structure with Hegel's, but endows the structure with a new content. This can be seen from the parallel formulation of it, given by Cohen: “History is the history of human industry, which undergoes growth in productive power, the stimulus and vehicle of which is an economic structure which perishes when it has stimulated more growth than it can contain (26).

A recent aspect of Canadians' concern to discover their “national identity” has been the interest of some Canadians to discover the history of philosophy in their country. Several decades ago this interest scarcely existed. If any questions about the subject had been raised, the chances are they would have elicited sceptical smiles or yawns. Many would simply have denied—and a few still deny—that there is any “Canadian philosophy” at all. Nowadays, however, the climate of opinion is more accommodating, so that those who study and write about what past philosophers in this country have done can expect to receive a serious hearing. No doubt a conclusive case for the study has yet to be stated. But the most extensive speculative statement made thus far is the book by Leslie Armour and Elizabeth Trott which I shall comment on below.