On most views of the nature of moral judgments, it is possible for a person to be mistaken in the belief that it is right to act in a certain way. When someone believes that it is right to do something, does that thing on the basis of such a belief, and yet in so doing commits deeds which are wrong by moral standards other than his own, we do not quite know whether to praise him for his conscientiousness while condemning his actions. He acts according to his conscience and does what he believes to be right, but his beliefs are erroneous and his actions wrong. Shall we praise the man for his conscientiousness while condemning his actions ?

In recent papers Fred Sommers and Michael Lockwood have independently argued that the distinction between the ‘is’ of predication and the ‘is’ of identity (henceforth: the IP-distinction) is not well-founded. This claim is somewhat obscure since, on the theories they advocate, it is not only still possible to distinguish between the ‘is’ of predication and the ‘is’ of identity, but important to do so on pain of turning good arguments bad. Sommers' way of putting it, namely that we don't need identity, is no better. Of course we don't need identity since, in second-order quantification logic, identity is definable in terms of predication. Perhaps the best way of putting their point is by means of Sommers' claim (op. cit. p. 500) that identity statements can be formalized by monadic relations. We can therefore mark the IP-distinction by the essentially polyadic nature of identity.

Malgré les critiques de toutes sortes dont elle fut et dont elle est encore l'objet, la grammaire transformationnelle est devenue en vingt ans, sous l'impulsion de Noam Chomsky, le paradigme dominant de la linguistique contemporaine. Et, bien sûr, l'incroyable rapidité de cette ascension s'est accompagnée de nombreuses crises de croissance. Linguistes, philosophes et psychologues, ainsi amenés à s'interroger sur les fondements épistémologiques de cette étrange discipline, se sont heurtés à de redoutables énigmes métathéoriques: de quel domaine factuel la linguistique est-elle la science? les grammaires sont-elles empiriquement falsifiables? quel rôle l'intuition du locuteur – et singulièrement celle du linguiste – joue-t-elle dans l'élaboration et la confirmation de la théorie? quelle relation y a-t-il entre règles et lois? quel est le rapport théorique de la linguistique à la psychologie, à la sociologie, à la neurophysiologie? … Ces questions et d'autres semblables ont donné lieu ces dernières années à une étonnante profusion de livres et d'articles, où, à propos d'une discipline particulière et d'exemples précis, sont discutés, souvent en profondeur, tous les principaux problemes de l'épistémologie contemporaine.

Eric Weil commence sa philosophic par l'opposition abrupte Philosophic et Violence; le chapitre XVI de sa Logique de la Philosophie (1950) — l'action — qui englobe en fait sa Philosophie morale (1961) et sa Philosophie politique (1956), renoue au premier paragraphe avec son début; raison et violence. C'est dire du même coup que cette antithèse constitue le fil conducteur de l'ceuvre de Weil dont l'ampleur, la puissance et la rigueur en font l'une des æuvres maîtresses de la philosophie contemporaine. Aborder ce thème ici ne peut done signifier qu'une trop brève introduction: la pensée de Weil défie le résumé. Aussi nous contenterons-nous de ressaisir la logique interne de son point de départ; nous esquisserons ensuite son rapport à la finitude de l'homme.

The problem of the person may be described as the crux of Descartes' philosophy in the fairly obvious literal sense that it is the point of intersection of the two chief axes of the system, the Philosophy of Nature and the Philosophy of Mind. The actual, if not professed aim of the former is the ousting of the occult powers and faculties of Scholastic-Aristotelian physics by the mechanical concept of force or action-by-contact. The chief tenet of the latter is that mind, whose essence is thinking, is clearly and distinctly conceivable apart from matter, the essence of which is extension. From this, by an illicit inference which need not concern us further, Descartes concludes that the mind is “really distinct” from matter, that is, a substance capable of existing apart from body in its own right. Where these two lines of thought meet, the problem of the person constitutes itself in the following manner.

La révolution scientifique ou copernicienne apparait habituellement au penseur comme un événement imposant, complexe et problématique. Mais ce ne semble pas être le cas pour M. Raymond Montpetit. Vous n'avez, selon lui, qu'è y appliquer un regard dialectique on psychanalytique et le tour est joué. C'est ce que je retiens de l'allure et du biais de sa discussion de mon article sur la révolution en question.

In his recent article, “A Philosophy of Wonder”, Howard Parsons launched an investigation into the nature of wonder, a subject that is of the highest importance, not only for making philosophy relevant to the present condition of man and society, but also for expanding and integrating philosophic disciplines. With care and sensitivity, he marked out the main sources of evidence for understanding wonder as a phenomenon, distinguished some of its leading features, and most important, showed that analysis of this essential structure of consciousness might illuminate a host of other phenomena in psychology, epistemology, aesthetics, ethics, politics, and religion.

Ily a un problème de la raison dans la pensée berkeleyenne. Il n'a guère été débattu jusqu'ici.

Deux éléments importants peuvent être invoqués à ce sujet. D'une part, on a cru longtemps que Berkeley était un empiriste. Plusieurs le croient toujours. De nombreux penseurs anglophones soutiennent cette thèse. Or des études assez profondes ont permis de dégager certains aspects structuraux de la pensée de Berkeley.

Do Wittgenstein's late philosophical writings represent a religious point of view? There is a good deal of evidence—including a number of Wittgenstein's own avowals—for an affirmative answer. Against this, there is the stark fact that Wittgenstein's late philosophical writings never directly discuss questions of God and religion. So, if they do represent a religious viewpoint, a correct account of it would, it seems, need to address subtleties and hidden tendencies. While a number of philosophical authors have offered such accounts, nothing resembling a consensus has so far emerged.

I ask whether we need African Canadian philosophy and attempt to provide an answer by considering a series of other questions that can be understood as alternative versions of the initial question. I ask (1) whether we need African Canadian philosophers; (2) whether we need philosophy focused on the African Canadian experience; (3) whether we already have African Canadian philosophy; (4) whether anybody of any background can do African Canadian philosophy; and (5) what African Canadian philosophy will do for us. I conclude that we do need African Canadian philosophy.

The Republic contains: (1) an implicit argument that slavery is unjust, (2) a bar against Greeks having Greek slaves that (3) allows barbarian slaves. The scholarship has failed to notice the first, that the second is a performative addressed to Greeks, and mistakes the third as explicit. Four passages are examined: (1) a catalogue of a Greek city’s social classes (433d1–5); (2) a bar against Greek slaves, asserting the continuation of barbarian slavery (469b5–71c3); (3) an assertion that the Best City can exist at any time and any place (499c7–d1); and (4) a passage asserting the injustice of enslavement (615a6–b6).

TIT FOR TAT (TFT) is the familiar strategy of returning like for like, good for good, bad for bad. Recently Robert Axelrod has shown this rule to be remarkably effective in promoting co-operation among egoists.1Nevertheless, it has been morally denigrated, most notably in the Sermon on the Mount but also by the modern patron of TFT, Anatol Rapoport:

Of the contingent strategies, Tit-for-tat elicits consistently the most cooperation in the Prisoner's Dilemma. Obviously, it would be fatuous to interpret this result as a vindication of the “eye-for-an-eye” principle. The success of Tit-for-tat may be no more than that of a simple reinforcement schedule in à two-choice situation, devoid of ethical overtones.

In this article, I try to shed light on the (Fregean) project of a logic of arithmetic—as discussed by Natorp and Rickert—by outlining three main questions. Is the number a logical object? Is arithmetic reducible to logic? Is it possible to deduce the arithmetical operations from purely logical laws? I argue that rigorous distinction between these three questions makes it possible to elucidate many problems affecting the program of a logic of arithmetic. The Neo-Kantian contribution to this program is at the same time considered in a new light.

Since Hume, some philosophers deny that conscious thinking requires the existence of a thinking subject. This claim is well illustrated by Lichtenberg’s remark according to which Descartes could not pretend to have established the certainty of “I think” but only that of “Thinking is going on” (Es denkt). Bernard Williams has argued that the claim that there can be thinking without a thinking subject is incoherent. My purpose, in this paper, is to suggest an interpretation of that claim which overcomes the problem raised by Williams.

This article deals with Michel Foucault's 1977–79 lectures on political economy. In the first part, we highlight his views on the market, which is equated to a social device instrumental in governing individuals so that they are induced to allow the ruler to reach his goal, which is providing security to the population. In the second part, we consider together Foucault's and Weber's views on the economy, since Foucault's concept of technique of the self is similar to Weber's concept of life conduct, which is central in his sociology of religion. This opens the way to a history of the modern economic behaviour considered as a form of ascetism.