John Rawls' Difference Principle has been well known since his early papers on distributive justice, and has taken on renewed interest with the publication of A Theory of Justice. The principle is one I find attractive, but I am skeptical of the arguments heretofore put forward in its defence. Here I will outline an entirely different defence which, while it may yield Rawls' desired conclusion, leaves one with a rather different picture from his of the place of the Difference Principle in the theory of distributive justice.

Many philosophers and theologians have thought that God's omniscience entails the truth of strict determinism. Many others, including most of the Scholastics, held that arguments for this view confused necessitas consequential and necessitas consequentis. I think the Scholastics were right. What I am primarily concerned to argue in this paper is that nonetheless great difficulties remain concerning the relation between God's knowledge and the fact that there are contingent events.

Three hundred and forty-one years ago, on Saturday September 19, 1648, at eight a.m., Blaise Pascal's Great Experiment took place. Following Pascal's explicit instructions, his brother-in-law Florin Périer took two identical glass tubes and filled them with mercury. He inverted the tubes and submerged the open end in a bowl containing an inch of mercury. Thus he set up two Torricellian baroscopes in the garden of the Minim Monastery, at the base of the Puy-de-Dôme, one of the highest mountains in central France. The height of the mercury in each tube was carefully measured and marked on the glass. The measurements, which were identical, were recorded. One device was left in place, as a control baroscope, with an observer. The other was dismantled.

Stephen Neale defends Russell's famous theory of definite descriptions against more than 40 years' worth of criticisms beginning long before Strawson's “On Referring.” Ever since Strawson's parting shot in that paper (“… ordinary language has no exact logic”), the theory of descriptions has been a battleground for the larger issue of whether a systematic theory of the semantics of natural language is really possible. Neale provides us with a sketch of part of that project as it currently stands. All of the complexities and irregularities of the use of definite descriptions in natural language can be combined, after all, in a single theory based on an “exact logic.” Neale argues that one can give a Russellian account of “incomplete descriptions” (as in ‘The table is covered with books’), generic uses of ‘the’ (‘The whale is a mammal’), plural descriptions (‘The men carried the piano’) and, of central interest, the purportedly referential uses identified by Donnellan (as in ‘The murderer of Smith is insane’ when it is Jones the accused we have in mind). Neale follows familiar answers to these objections; incorporate demonstratives into the account (to get ‘The table over there …’), distinguish the proposition expressed from the one meant (the “referential” use is what was meant not said), and point out that the problem is not unique to definite descriptions and so cannot be a fault of any particular theory of them (many expressions have generic, plural and “referential” uses).

Le droit, il est inutile d'insister sur ce point, est essentiellement normatif. Il règle, dirige, impose, sanctionne les conduites, ou du moins certains types de conduites, dans la société. À cet égard, le milieu clinique est un milieu qui, comme tous les autres, n'échappe évidemment pas aux interactions entre individus (par exemple, les rapports entre patient et médecin) ou entre individus et collectivité (par exemple, entre les médecins et l'hôpital ou l'hôpital et l'État). Il est done naturel que les milieux médicaux et hospitaliers soient générateurs de normes d'une part et, d'autre part, utilisent celles-ci de façon courante dans les relations humaines.

The study of philosophy has no leading edge. Scholars may fruitfully explore past eras and superceded theories, revise their views of historic figures, modify inadequate theories, defend successful yet overlooked ideas, salvage the wheat from the chaff. A novel defense of previously discredited arguments could lead to new insights, and this is so even if that defense proved ultimately unsuccessful. But, I believe, one can profitably defend some perhaps too hastily condemned view only if one meanwhile keeps a watchful eye on contemporary problems and theorizing. Fred Wilson's monograph, Explanation, Causation and Deduction, attempts just such a defense, while steadfastly ignoring much of contemporary theory. The lack of a sympathetic ear to recent critics of empiricism is the largest single failing of this attempt, and it is this failing which has prevented Prof. Wilson from seeing the poverty of his position.

This paper examines the concept of moral responsibility as it applies to the actions of corporations. I argue that it is both conceptually and morally appropriate to hold corporations morally responsible for some of their actions, and I attempt to show that arguments to the contrary are unsound. Although I hold that corporations may legitimately be held morally responsible I also argue that one can expect capitalist corporations to follow moral principles only to a rather limited extent.

We can approach the nature of value from a number of starting points. Immersed in the realm of art, we may wonder what differentiates the beautiful from the ugly, the excellent from the mediocre. Our search might lead us to ultimate standards of value or canons of beauty. Engaged in social or cultural analysis, we can note the variegated and often shifting values in terms of which classes of people identify themselves or are identifiable to others. Reflecting on these can yield characteristic values. Looking at the dynamics of individual lives, we can ask after the values that motivate a person, his personal values. But perhaps most commonly in philosophical circles, it is ethics which forces us to take stock of the nature of value as we search for the nature of ethical values. Yet values, although presupposed by each of these areas of enquiry, are not restricted to any of them. A general theory of value can, and therefore ought, to go beyond these more specific domains.

In Putnam's theory of reference, an historical component and an indexical one both play some part in establishing the extension of terms, although in “The meaning of ‘meaning’” it is not altogether clear just how important he believes the historical element to be. He seems to be much more interested in its indexical component, which he believes plays more or less the same role in his theory as rigidity does in Krip-ke's. In this paper, I will look more closely at these two elements and see what sorts of roles they could play in a theory like Putnam's. A theory of the extensions of general terms will emerge which differs from Putnam's in some important respects. It does, however, have some similarity with a recently published theory of Matthen's, but the arguments are different. I will also outline a theory of essences and kinds, which is based on this modified version.

Le point de départ est logique. Et la logique signifie pour Bolzano une théorie et une méthodologie des sciences. Son œuvre maîtresse, la Doctrine de la Science (WL) est ainsi un livre de logique. Lorsqu'il examine les fondements de toute science, c'est-à-dire, lorsqu'il les définit comme un ensemble de lois analytiques et universelles qui, à leur tour, constituent une science en soi, Bolzano fait bien une analyse de type spécifiquement logique, mais dans le même moment, c'est véritablement sa philosophie qu'il réalise, à savoir, la philosophie des fondements objectifs et a priori de la réalité concrète.

Philosophers have long been interested in dreams, for a variety of reasons. Much recent discussion has narrowed the scope of the traditional concern, however, and today dreams are often regarded from a position of skepticism and implicit behaviorism. This standpoint grew out of, and helped to reinforce, a habit of regarding Wittgenstein's later work as demonstrating a need for public, behavioral criteria of meanings. Thus, philosophers have wondered if there is any sense in saying that we do experience dreams, because so few of the usual criteria of “experience” apply to them. This is no occasion to review the complete history of dream interpretation by analytic philosophers, let alone the orthodox interpretation of the Philosophical Investigations. Instead, I will report an aspect of dreaming which has been overlooked in recent discussion, apply these findings to some of the alleged difficulties of speaking meaningfully of dream experience and, finally, attempt to locate this understanding of dreaming within Wittgenstein's later work.

« La «théorie des idées» de Platon est un essai pour résoudre ce problème et mon opinion est qu'elle est un des essais les plus réussis faits jusqu'ici. La théorie qu'on défendra dans ce qui suit est largement platonicienne, avec simplement les modifications que le temps a montrées nécessaires.» (Problems of Philosophy, 1912, cité d'après l'édition de 1946, p. 91).