In his book The Right and the Good Professor W. D. Ross states a theory that ethics is concerned with two distinct conceptions which are logically quite independent of each other and must not be confused: the right, viz. the act which we are under an obligation to do irrespective of our motives, and the morally good, viz. the good motives, desires and so on, irrespective of what actions they lead us to. In a later book, Foundations of Ethics, he repeats this theory somewhat altered and enlarged. Professor Broad says about the first book that it is “the most important contribution to ethical theory made in England for a generation,” and for the second book he proposes the nickname “the righter and the better.”

My chief aim here is to achieve a clearer understanding of what it means to say that people perceive that something is the case. I shall assume that to gain such an understanding it will be sufficient to exhibit the logical form of such perception sentences in terms of predicates, quantifiers, and variables. I shall thus attempt to uncover the most important presuppositions housed in our saying that a person perceives that something is so, with a view to making these presuppositions explicit in the exhibition of logical form. To facilitate my discovery of these presuppositions I shall first try to clarify what it means to say that a non-human animal believes that something is so; for it will be my contention that sentences expressing animal belief share some of the main logical features of sentences expressing what one perceives to be the case.

If we ask what are the problems which have to be dealt with when the subject of art is being discussed in a philosophical manner, we shall no doubt receive a variety of answers: but there will be in one respect a considerable measure of agreement, viz. that the main problem consists in discovering (a) what is the common property in all works of art which distinguishes them from things that are not works of art, and (b) what is the common property in all good works of art which distinguishes them from bad or mediocre ones. Certainly an immense amount of labour has in the past been devoted to this purpose. Recent philosophical practice, however, has implied some dissatisfaction with this type of approach, and the purpose of this article is to try to show that the dissatisfaction is justified.

But if reason has no original influence, it is impossible it can withstand any principle which has such an efficacy, or ever keep the mind in suspense a moment. Thus, it appears, that the principle which opposes our passions cannot be the same with reason, and is only called so in an improper sense. We speak not strictly and philosophically, when we talk of the combat of passion and of reason.

‘… and he arranged it all. It's done me the world of good, I can tell you. And that's why I said that yesterday was both yesterday and two years ago.’

‘Well, it still sounds nonsense to me. I told you H. G. Wells would do you no good.’

In ‘A Plea For Excuses’ Austin observes that there are many situations in which a person accused of doing an action A wishes to protest that it is not altogether accurate or fair to say that he did A. The person may wish to excuse himself from an accusation of doing A on the grounds that what happened was inadvertent, or the result of an accident, or done by mistake etc. etc. Moreover if he really has an excuse, then it will no longer be possible simply to say that he did A, because it will be seen that either it is not true that he did anything at all, or that whatever he did it was not A but something else, or that he did A in such a manner that simply to say that he did it would be misleading in the extreme.

There is a natural contrast often made in ordinary language between the actions which we do because we want or desire to do them, and the actions which we do although we do not want to do them. It is a contrast which has been ignored by much modern philosophy of mind which has seen desire as a component of all actions, and the reasons for all actions as involving desires of various kinds. The ignoring of the distinction between desire and the active component in every action (call it ‘trying’ or ‘seeking’ or ‘having a volition’) leads a man to suppose that he can no more help doing what he does than he can help his desires. But ‘desires’, in the normal ordinary language sense of the word, are natural inclinations to actions of certain sorts with which we find ourselves. We cannot (immediately) help our natural inclinations but what we can do is choose whether to yield to them, or resist them and do what we are not naturally inclined to do.

It is not easy for an Englishman to acquire a competent knowledge of French philosophy. For one thing there are so many French philosophers writing so many books, and for another the multiplicity of men is matched by the variety of views. In a country where a knowledge of philosophy is expected of any cultivated man, and where the flourishing of philosophy in school and university curricula is regarded as a condition of intellectual freedom, this variety is accepted as part of the cultural background. Professor Bréhier's Transformation de la Philosophie Française (Flammarion, Paris, 1950) must, even so, be of great value to French readers, because of the author's capacity-so admirably shown already in a History of Philosophy that is unquestionably the best now obtainable-to pick out what is essential in a welter of theories, arguments, and mere pronouncements. To English readers, whose knowledge of the background is necessarily limited, this book is particularly valuable, not only for the clarification it brings, but also for a bibliography that is closely related to the text. M. Bréhier observes that French philosophers of the generation that followed and criticized Durkheim, Bergson and Brunschwicg showed themselves acutely conscious of the discontinuities of things, and puritanically averse to the construction of philosophical systems. (We may compare the roughly contemporaneous reaction in this country against the systems of Bosanquet and Alexander, though the arguments were for the most part very different.) M. Bréhier, however, does not take this anti-systematic, pluralist tendency at its own valuation. French philosophy, he thinks, is in a phase that makes it comparable to medieval philosophy. It was characteristic of medieval philosophy that it comprised no individually constructed systems like those, for example, of Descartes, Leibniz, Hegel, and Schopenhauer, which have grown up and died away in Europe since the Renaissance. The main reason for this was that Christianity itself provided a common system which was never to be questioned, so that philosophers concerned themselves not with systems, for that would have led to heresy, but with particular problems. Part of M. Bréhier's parallel with modern times is that some Christians and all Marxists aim to produce the same condition.

I Venture to take as the subject for our consideration the philosophical study of politics. However imperfect the treatment of such a subject, it seems to me opportune that attention should at this point of time be directed to the question. The study of politics is of increasing importance in the curricula of our universities and in general adult education. There is also the plain fact that we live in times when a deep unrest of spirit and a great variety of experiment challenge ideas and institutions which have received wide acceptance. There has been, in short, a return to politics. It is well that we should consider afresh the value of the study and the methods by which it is studied.