Semiotics, the age-old investigation of signs, is still striving for acknowledgement as a scientific (and academic) discipline. Though the ‘linguistic turn’ in the philosophical disciplines seemed to be followed by a ‘semiotic turn’ in many sciences during the 1970s, efforts were not crowned by great success. When seen from a certain distance, a definition of semiotics as a discipline can only be obtained from its history. Research into the sources of the human pre-occupation with signs, and with concepts or conceptions of signs, is really desirable and even necessary when a field of considerable scientific interest at the brink of being awarded the rank of a discipline runs the risk of getting lost between the unificationism of the Morris-type and the elegance of pseudo-mathematical empty classificationism (such as demonstrated in the late Max Bense's Stuttgart School) on the one side, and profitable exploitation of the sign's popularized design qualities on the other.

In a recent discussion of the notion of substance Miss Anscombe points out that the following three doctrines are very closely associated: the doctrine that proper names lack all connotation, are mere labels, the view that there is nothing essential to the individual, and the doctrine that individuals are bare particulars with no properties in and of themselves. In this article as well as in other writings she rejects all three of these doctrines. And, along with P. T. Geach, whose position on this matter I take to be identical to hers, she defends a doctrine of proper names that is based upon this rejection. She is quite right in supposing that the notion of individuality embodied in these three doctrines is not a straw man. E. B. Allaire has recently defended the doctrine that there are bare particulars along with its corollaries about names and the nominal essence of individuals. He even thinks the doctrine can be defended on “common sense” grounds, independently of dialectical considerations. In this paper I wish to examine one of his arguments in defence of bare particulars.

Bien Que Heidegger semble accorder une grande importance aux recherches de W. Dilthey en philosophie de l'histoire, il ne nous fournit que très peu de renseignements sur le rapport exact entre sa propre notion d'historialité et la philosophie de la vie de Dilthey, si bien que la transition de la seconde à la première doit, dans une certaine mesure, être reconstituée. La tâche en vaut la peine puisqu'elle nous permettrait d'apercevoir sous un éclairage différent /es racines de la philosophie existentielle, de même que l'intention première de Heidegger en tant qu'opposée à celle de Dilthey.

The question whether linguistic philosophy and phenomenology have any significant common ground has been raised increasingly in recent years. It seems to me that one useful means of exploring this question is to examine descriptions of the very concept of philosophical analysis which each involves so as to suggest relevant similarities in aims and methods. There are many such affinities—and I shall want to mention some, ones which are important for establishing communication between these traditions customarily considered so disparate. There are also fundamental differences not only in techniques and doctrines but in style and, one might say, in cultural temper. This is to say nothing of the extensive variation and bitter disagreements internal to each tradition itself—among the proponents of early and late Wittgenstein, among followers of the early and late Husserl, and, of course, within the personal evolution of these formative giants themselves.

In the longrunning war between the friends of knowledge and their sceptical enemies the moral front has always been one of the busiest. Here the sceptic assails us in the guise of the cunning and resourceful amoralist who disavows all ethical constraints. Some philosophers, seeing no prospect of defeating the amoralist by rational methods, have fallen back on a policy of containment by means of social and political sanctions. But others of a more truculent frame of mind have continued to seek a decisive argumentative victory.

Although it is acknowledged that Hume's matters of fact are established by inductive reasoning, it is not always clear which inferences may be called reasonable. In deductive reasoning, it is only reasonable to admit true conclusions of valid arguments. However, in an argument which uses probability as Hume's inductive arguments do, the criterion for reasonableness is not as clear.

The notion of trying is vital to any theory of action. You could hardly analyse much of what people do without mentioning their efforts, successful and unsuccessful. A man's desires and decisions find expression in his attempts. What you are trying to do is also a prime example of what you know without benefit of evidence and observation. It might seem that little attention has been devoted to this central concept because it is philosophically trouble-free. Isn't trying simply exerting yourself—mentally or physically—as a means of bringing about some result you want? And just as you can think of anything under the sun, can't you try to do anything at all? These and similar natural views of trying call forth a swarm of minor, but challenging problems. To begin with, there are at least three relevant species of trying besides the pre-eminent cause-effect or meansends type. I won't take time to belabor the suggestion that trying is merely bracing yourself inwardly, while manifesting your subcutaneous capers through your behavior. But this quaint hypothesis does raise problems. Is trying just doing something? To what extent is it constituted by the agent's intentions and beliefs? As for what a person can try to do, a random survey indicates that there are unsuspected limits. It sounds absurd to describe a person as attempting to choke, to misplace something, to feel pain, to get annoyed or discouraged.

L'importance du philosophe dans la cité a toujours été reconnue sous une forme ou sous une autre. Quand Athénes par exemple, condamne Socrate á boire la cigüe, ses juges veulent prémunir le corps social contre les effets de l'esprit critique du philosophe. On s'entend par ailleurs á proclamer que Rousseau et Hégel sont les péres du monde moderne et saint Augustin celui de la civilisation chrétienne médiévale. Qui nierait que des philosophes comme Kierkegaard, Marx et Nietzsche ont marqué profondement notre siecle. Enfin, une enquête de l'Unesco faite récemment (1951) souligne en ces termes l'importance que cet organisme international attache à l'enseignement de la philosophie: «La place toute particulière qui est faite par cette enquête à l'enseignement de la philosophie s'explique par le rôle que jouent les idées philosophiques dans la conduite et l'opinion des hommes… Le développement des idées philosophiques a eu dans l'histoire et a encore aujourd'hui une grande importance — que ce soit directement ou indirectement — pour l'institution de la démocratic, pour le renforcement des droits de l'homme et pour la sauvegarde de la paix.»

Many people seem to find it quite impossible to doubt that if a person did not do something freely, then he can be neither praised nor blamed for doing it. This assumption is shared by people with very different views about freedom, determinism and moral responsibility. It is held by most ‘libertarians’, who, to preserve moral responsibility, reject determinism. It is held by ‘hard determinists’, who accept determinism and therefore reject moral responsibility; and it is held by ‘soft determinists’, who accept determinism, but argue that determinism does not exclude any kind of freedom that is relevant to whether a person may be held responsible.

Dans cet exposé nous nous proposons de traiter d'un livre récent de Herbert Fingarette intitulé Self-Deception (L'lllusion sur soimême), et d'essayer d'établir un rapport entre cette œuvre et certaines divergences philosophiques entre Jean-Paul Sartre et Gabriel Marcel; des divergences qui ont eu lieu pendant la période existentialiste de M. Sartre.

Twenty-three years after its publication, Maurice Merleau-Ponty's The Visible and the Invisible remains a philosophical enigma. Consider, for example, the curious niche the work occupies within the body of phenomenological literature. The Visible and the Invisible is frequently cited for its study of the residual problem areas of phenomenology—the relationship of consciousness to the perceptual milieu and, more recently, the relationship of language to the world—while its proposed solutions to such problems remain largely ignored.