In the present paper I propose to examine St. Thomas Aquinas' third way of proving the existence of a God (henceforth TW), keeping in view and applying the proposals I have made elsewhere concerning the number andorder of the “Five Ways” and the role therein played by TW. I maintain that the first three ways take as starting-points the three types of act or actuality presented by Aristotle in Metaphysics 9.6: that the first way starts from imperfect actuality (motion), the second from secondary actuality (action or efficiency), and TW from primary actuality (being, or substantial actuality). The idea, of course, of a way of proving the existence of a God is that one proceeds from an effect, itself better known to us than its cause, to a knowledge of the existence of the cause. The problem is to develop a vision of the effect as an effect, i.e., a vision such as to reveal dependence on another, and so lead us in knowledge to the existence of that other.

Le nominalisme est « le refus d'admettre toute entité autre qu'indivi-duelle » (Goodman, 1977, 26). II doit, pour justifier la simplicité de son ontologie, proposer une théorie de laconnaissance et une théorie sémantique qui ne présupposent ni l'une ni l'autre l'existence réelle des univer-saux. Certaines des voies qui s'ouvrent à cette entreprise délicate ont été systématiquement explorées vers la fin du Moyen Age et il y a tout à parier que, malgré les ruptures épistémologiques, les révolutions scientifiques et autres changements d'epistémè, les nominalistes contemporains pourraient encore profiter de quelque façon de l'immense travail théorique accompli par leurs prédécesseurs médiévaux. C'est dans cet esprit que je voudrais procéder à une reconstruction sommaire de la théorie sémantique avancée au début du quatorzième siècle par le Fran-ciscain Guillaume d'Occam (12857?–1349). Je ne m'engagerai pas dans une comparaison détaillée entre Occam et les auteurs contemporains, mais j'essaierai de présenter sans en trahir l'esprit la sémantique occa-miste de manière à en faire apparaître la pertinence pour les débats actuels. II serait possible, me semble-t-il, d'aller encore plus loin dans cette voie en mettant à profit les techniques formelles récentes pour axiomatiser la théorie d'Occam. Pour l'instant cependant, je me limiterai à une présentation plutôt informelle.

On n'a jamais bien jugé l'empirisme, supposant d'emblée qu'il était l'opposé du rationalisme. En fait, qu'il s'agisse de l'empirisme ou du rationalisme, on déploie dans chaque cas une chaîne de séquences dont il s'agit de rendre les termes solidaires:

(a) rationalisme ═ a priorisme ═ principes généraux abstraits (i.e. pensée logique) ═ raison universelle ═ idéalisme ═ la vérité est raison pure

(b) empirisme ═ a postériorisme ═ pas de principes généraux abstraits ═ pas d'ordre rationnel (on renvoie à Bacon et à la chasse de Pan) ═ positivisme ═ réalisme (naïf).

Determinism presents us with a sceptical problem by casting doubt upon the basic common sense conviction that we are free agents who are, on occasion, confronted with genuine alternatives. A genuine alternative is present in a situation in which an agent must choose between two actions, each of which he can both select and perform. Which of the actions he chooses and does is determined at the moment of his decision, but not prior to it. The non-determinist hangs steadfastly onto this conviction and seeks to bolster it by common sense arguments; yet the arguments of the determinist are so clear, simple and “scientific” that the would-be libertarian often finds himself at a loss. In this paper I shall argue that the seemingly irrefutable arguments of the determinist rest upon an implicit assumption which is inconsistent with determinism. This assumption is a quasi-Kantian one: that a human being is a rational agent who, on occasion, acts on the basis of reasons which justify but do not causally explain his action. The relation between the reason and the action which it justifies is logical rather than causal. Although the determinist explicitly rejects this assumption, he also holds determinism to be objectively true and supports his claim by appealing to justifying reasons. I shall argue that it is a logical consequence of determinism that appeals to justifying reasons and also the very concept of objective truth must be abandoned.

I offer here an interpretation and defense of John Stuart Mill's qualitative hedonism. One of the results of Mill's well-known mental crisis was a concept of utility substantially different from the orthodox Benthamite quantitative hedonism which Mill came to regard as being fraught with difficulties. He saw Bentham's concept as being excessively narrow, and he sought to overcome its limitations by enlarging his own concept of utility. He did this by including the quality of pleasures along with the quantity in the estimation of their worth. At the same time, Mill was highly critical of the intuitionist ethical theories of his day, and propounded utilitarianism as the rational, objective, and scientific alternative. So if Mill is to succeed in his enterprise of countering intuitionism while avoiding the pitfalls of Benthamite utilitarianism, he must retain the objectivity of Benthamism while repudiating its narrowness. Mill's critics have argued that when he opened up his concept of utility to include quality, he modified his theory so radically that he can no longer be called a hedonistic utilitarian, and that he relinquished the consis- tency and objectivity of Benthamite utilitarianism along with its weak- nesses. I argue here that Mill abandons neither hedonism nor utilitarianism, and that the objectivity and consistency of his theory are not undermined.

In Chapter II of his work The Philosophy of Spinoza, Wolfson accepts Descartes' distinction between the geometrical method of philosophizing and the geometrical form of literary exposition. The geometrical method of philosophizing is a method of demonstration and is essentially identical with “valid syllogistic reasoning as practised throughout the history of philosophy.” The geometrical form of literary exposition is one modelled after the literary form of Euclid's Elements. Wolfson proceeds to present two theses which serve as the premises of a conclusion respecting the relation between form and content in Spinoza's Ethics. The first thesis is that as a consequence of Spinoza's “mathematical way of looking at things” the geometrical method “is adopted by Spinoza and used consistently in his discussions of metaphysical matters throughout his chief philosophic work.” The second thesis is to the effect that there is no logical connection between the geometrical method of philosophizing and the geometrical literary form of exposition, i.e., a geometrizing philosopher, e.g., Descartes, need not employ the geometrical literary form. From these theses, serving as premises, Wolfson concludes that “there is no logical connection between the substance of Spinoza's philosophy and the form in which it is written” and, hence, “his choice of the Euclidian geometrical form is to be explained on other grounds.” Wolfson proceeds to present four possible reasons which, either individually or conjointly, may lie behind Spinoza's employment of the geometrical literary form: (1) on pedagogical grounds, (2) in reaction against certain literary forms which had developed since the Renaissance, (3) to avoid arguing against his opponents, and (4) for the sake of novelty.

Marjorie Hope Nicolson's The Conway Letters is, simultaneously, a work of so many different kinds, and offers itself to so many distinct cultural and intellectual constituencies, that it is difficult to include them all, and impossible to assign them priority or precedence. It is first of all, though, a delightful and important book. It has been out of print for a great many years, the original edition of 1930 long ago sold out. So its reappearance in a new edition, with extensive revisions and additions by Sarah Hutton, is very much to be applauded and welcomed.

Evolutionary psychology presupposes relations between theories of different domains that the two traditional models, reduction and autonomy, cannot properly account for. We aim to construct a model of relations between theories that succeeds where traditional models fail. We show that the multiple realizability argument, on which the autonomist model is thought to rest, is compatible with reductionism and, following Kim, that an autonomist reading of the argument deprives psychology of its scientific status. We therefore opt for a reductionist model compatible with functionalism and multiple realizability, but show that, within evolutionary psychology at least, the very application of the conditions of reduction requires strong interactions between psychology and various other adjacent disciplines. We also show that reduction must be preceded in evolutionary psychology by an “augmentation” of the reduction base, which brings still other disciplines into play. Finally, we present a model of the interaction between disciplines we believe accounts best for these relations and discuss the problems facing this kind of enterprise.

Nous publions sous ce titre la traduction française de l'essai philosophique de Kurt Gödel intitulé: «Is Mathematics Syntax of Language?» Inédit jusqu'à présent, l'original paraîtra dans le 3e volume des Collected Works de Gödel, dont la publication est imminente. Nous savons par Hao Wang que, le 15 mai 1953, Paul Arthur Schilpp avait invité Gödel à apporter sa contribution au volume consacré à Carnap dans The Library of Living Philosophers. Le manuscrit de Gödel «Carnap and the Ontology of Mathematics», devait être remis au plus tard le 2 avril 1954. Dés le 2 juillet 1953, Gödel donnait son accord à Schilpp pour la rédaction d'un article intitulé «Some Observations on the Nominalistic View of the Nature of Mathematics.» Cependant, le volume consacré à Carnap paraîtra en 1963 sans qu'y figure la contribution de Gödel. En effet — toujours selon Wang — Gödel avait informé Schilpp, le 2 février 1959, qu'il renonçait à l'envoi de l'article, dont il avait composé, surtout en 1954–1955, plusieur s versions sous le titre «Is Mathematics Syntax of Language?» Pour expliquer cet abandon, Wang avance les raisons suivantes: En premier lieu, Gödel était bien convaincu d'avoir réfuté la thése syntaxique, mais il n'était pas satisfait de son argumentation en faveur du platonisme. Deuxiémement, les critiques de Gödel s'adressent aux théses soutenues par Carnap en 1934 plutôt qu'à celles que ce dernier défendra vingt ans aprés, et qui paraissent moins hostiles au platonisme de son interlocuteur. II pouvait paraître douteux, en troisieme lieu, que Carnap ait eu le temps de rédiger, en 1959, la réponse qu'il aurait du faire, conformément aux régies de la collection, à Gödel. Or, en 1943 déjà, Gödel avait voulu retirer sa contribution au volume consacré à Russell dans la même serie, parce que ce dernier n'avait pu répondre à l'article de Gödel dont la rédaction lui avait été communiquée trop tardivement.

Authenticity and diversity have both become catchwords in contemporary North Atlantic societies. What has not, however, been widely explored is the interrelation of these two ideas. To this end, the present article takes up the sometime convergent, sometime divergent writings of Charles Taylor and Martin Heidegger, drawing out their thoughts on authenticity and showing how they can serve as a ground for a new form of cultural diversity. For both, authentic being-in-the-world affords us access to our own deep reservoir of cultural material that is the necessary resource for fruitful engagement with other cultures.

In light of recent legal decisions affording more than two parents to Canadian children, we consider whether there is any moral reason for limiting the number of parents a child can have to two. We look at several traditional arguments for this position and find that they fail to justify it. We also consider an argument inspired by Brighouse and Swift’s work on the goods of parenting and find that while it brings up important points, it is not strong enough to support a limit of just two parents. We conclude with some thoughts about how else the notion of parenthood could be helpfully separated from traditional notions.

In the Science of Logic and Philosophical Encyclopaedia, Hegel reconstructs Kant’s Critical philosophy by developing: a transcendental logic in the Science of Logic and Philosophy of Nature (§2), a pragmatic account of the a priori (§3), and a crucial use of the verb “realisieren” in connection with concepts and principles (§4). These three points are central to Hegel’s specifically cognitive semantics, which Hegel developed from Kant’s Thesis of Singular Cognitive Reference into a systematic, pragmatic realism. Hegel’s re-analysis of Kant’s Critical philosophy is thus the first and still one of the most adequate forms of pragmatic realism.

In the etiology of teleological functions, what role can be played by accidental occurrences? Douglas Ehring's essay “Accidental Functions” constructs a theory of ideological functions which makes it possible for objects to have functions even when their causal origins are due entirely to accident—be they natural functions (the function of the heart) or artifact functions (the function of a watch). Ehring constructs this view on the basis of a set of putative counterexamples aimed largely at the theories of Enc and Adams. Both of these theories block the attribution of ideological function to structures with entirely accidental causal histories—accidental in origin and in the way their effects are causally sustained.

ABSTRACT: This paper aims at providing a general assessment of Habermas’s recent positions on the place of religion in the public sphere. After reviewing and contrasting Rawls’s and Habermas’s respective positions on the issue, it argues that Habermas’s contribution raises some difficulties both theoretical and practical. At the theoretical level, it is shown that Habermas’s contribution poses a problem of coherence with respect to his more general conception of deliberative democracy. At the practical level, the soundness of Habermas’s view of the respective roles expected of religious and secular citizens in the public sphere is brought into question.

In this paper, I focus on the notion of creation in Bergson’s works, and I characterize it as a virtuous circle. The pattern of the virtuous circle displays a process that retrospectively finds its identity in itself through present events. I show that this pattern is at work in the free act, in the actions of living organisms, and mostly in the evolutionary process itself. I then move on to ask weather it is possible to broaden the perspective beyond the traditional pattern associated with Bergson’s spiritualism. I show that, contrary to what Bergson envisioned, this virtuous circle can be broadened as to include even the material world.

On commémore assez couramment la naissance ou la mort d'un savant, qui sont deux événements contingents, étrangers à la valeur de l'homme, bien que le premier ait rendu cette valeur possible quant à la manifestation, et que le second l'ait rendue d'autant plus précieuse qu'il en a souligné la fragilité.

Paul Valéry a dit que «les grands hommes meurent deux fois, une fois comme hommes et une fois comme grands ». De Claude Bernard, on peut dire que l'année 1965 a confirmé sa survie comme grand, près d'un siècle après sa mort comme homme (1878), car ce qui fut célébré, au Collège de France, dans un Colloque à la fois historique et scientifique, c'est le Centenaire d'un grand livre. Commémoration done au plein sens du terme, puisqu'en identifiant un homme et son œuvre, la postérité ressuscitait le premier en reconnaissant et en proelamant la présence stimulante et agissante de la seconde dans l'univers de la culture.