I cannot forbear adding to these reasonings an observation, which may, perhaps, be found of some importance. In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remark'd, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when of a sudden I am surpriz'd to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is, however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, 'tis necessary that it shou'd be observ'd and explain'd; and at the same time that a reason should be given, for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it. But as authors do not commonly use this precaution, I shall presume to recommend it to the readers; and am persuaded, that this small attention wou'd subvert all the vulgar systems of morality, and let us see, that the distinction of vice and virtue is not founded merely on the relations of objects, nor is perceiv'd by reason.

“Imagination doth denote the mind active”, said Berkeley. And the activity of the mind, finite as well as infinite, was a cardinal point in his philosophy. Imagination showed that minds, or spirits, to use the term Berkeley preferred, were causal agents.

I am addressing you this evening in a somewhat unfamiliar theme: that of “logical values” or “values in speaking.” I do so since the points I want to raise come up very constantly in contemporary discussion, and yet are seldom made the object of explicit reflection. There are, it is plain, a large number of qualities which appeal to us in our utterances, whether in the setting forth of our notions in words, or in the weaving of such words into sentences. And they may be said to appeal to us in a peculiar manner, and to satisfy a special set of interests in us, which we may group together as the “logical side” of our nature. Thus most people would say that clarity, relevance, coherence, solid significance and simplicity were merits in speaking, and that so also was truthful conformity to the facts of experience, whether in their general outline or their concrete detail. And everyone would admit readily that such excellences “belonged together,” that they were somehow akin, and that they differed profoundly from such virtues in speaking as poetic felicity, practical helpfulness, or moral and religious inspiration. And most people would also be willing to say, with a great deal of obscurity and most puzzling conviction, that the appeal of such qualities wasn't “merely momentary and personal,” but had something “solid” and “universal” about it, that a man would be foolish not to value such qualities, and that he couldn't help valuing them if he only thought of them sufficiently. And we should recommend such qualities to the approval of others with an air of earnestness and authority, setting them on a level, in this respect, with those other excellences that are called “ethical” and “aesthetic.” But while we could back our recommendation in the last two types of case with a great deal of systematic doctrine, built up in centuries of reflection, we should have little to bring forward in the former case, since the excellences that I want to call “logical,” though often acknowledged, have seldom been made the objects of systematic reflection. Perhaps this is due to the fact that the “true” has generally been ranged alongside of the “good” and the “beautiful” as a species of “ultimate value.”

Sartre's experimentation in February 1935 with the drug mescalin has been well documented by Simone de Beauvoir in her book The Prime of Life.1 She recalls that Sartre experienced under the influence of the drug not exactly hallucinations, ‘but the objects he looked at changed their appearance in the most horrifying manner:’ [POL 209]. The residual effects of this nightmarish experience left Sartre, not only for several days ‘in a state of deep depression’ [POL 210], but also produced moods that ‘recalled those that had been induced by mescalin.’

A literary text or fiction, while making use of the referential or descriptive resources of our ordinary language, nevertheless does not make use of them in a referential or a descriptive manner. Reference may indeed seem to be made to persons or circumstances or events, in the sense that such things are mentioned in the literary text and may even be linked together by it into some kind of a story. Reference is not made to them, in the sense that these persons or circumstances or events have no existence in the actual world in which the text is written or read, or else that it is irrelevant to the nature of the text as a piece of literature if they do have such an existence.

In The View from Nowhere, Thomas Nagel develops a theory of practical reasoning which attempts to give the personal, or subjective, point of view its due2 while still insisting on the objectivity of ethics.

On the objective side, Nagel affirms that there are truths about values and reasons for action which are independent of the ways in which reasons and values appear to us, independent of our own particular beliefs and inclinations (p. 144). The objective foundation for these truths consists in a certain distinctive process of understanding. Objective understanding is explicated in terms of an objective standpoint, a standpoint defined as impersonal, that is, as detached from the subjective point of view. The objective standpoint is structured by a conception ‘of the world as centerless—as containing ourselves and other beings with particular points of view’ (p. 140). As with scientific reasoning, ‘we begin from our position inside the world and try to transcend it by regarding what we find here as a sample of the whole’ (p. 141).

W. D. Hudson's criticism of some points in my ‘Wittgensteinian Fideism’ are challenging and deserve comment. I remain, however, unconvinced that they require any modification in my assessment of Wittgensteinian Fideism. I shall try to justify this conviction.

Wittgenstein's genius, John Wisdom has suggested, was uniquely revealed in his ability to formulate such questions as ‘Could one play chess without the queen? Would it still be chess?’ The central questions raised by Richard Rorty's work may be cast in a parallel form: ‘Could one do philosophy without the notion of truth as “correspondence with the Real”? Would it still be philosophy?’ Both pairs of questions, Wittgenstein' and Rorty's, are quintessentially anti-essentialist. The scope and ingenuity of Rorty's ‘philosophy without mirrors’ has challenged philosophers to reconf ront basic questions about the nature and purposes of philosophical inquiry.

This year we have been celebrating our centenary, and, when so much has been said, and justly said, of the contributions to various branches of science and learning that have emanated from University College, it seems fitting that the part which the College has played in the advancement of philosophical research should not be left out of account. For in spite of the manifold difficulties that stood in the way of instituting a school of philosophical study in London, what has been achieved here, both in the way of original investigation and of effective teaching, constitutes a record of which we may well be proud.

John Wisdom studied ‘moral sciences’ in Cambridge under G. E. Moore and C. D. Broad. His first post as a teacher of philosophy was at St Andrew's University under F. G. Stout (1929-34). His early books Interpretation and Analysis (1931) and Problems of Mind and Matter (1934) and a series of articles on ‘Logical Constructions’ in Mind 1931-33, later published as a book (1969), belong to this time.

At the beginning of one of his inimitable discourses William James once said, ‘I am only a philosopher, and there is only one thing that a philosopher can be relied on to do, and that is, to contradict other philosophers’.1 In his succeeding discourse James himself departed from this theme. And so shall I. I shall not be contradicting other philosophers—at least not very often. What I aim to do is to take a fresh look at one of the main traditions in American philosophy for insight and illumination on a way of dealing with some of the most serious issues of our time. But before I turn to that, my main theme, I want to pursue for a bit some variations on another, the cultural relevance of philosophy, for, as I view the matter, they are related.

There are some people whose actions are much more often good than evil. If their infrequent immorality does not cause much harm, it is reasonable to regard such people as morally good. Nevertheless, moral goodness remains an elusive quality, because it is difficult to identify good actions. Motives, consequences, knowledge of alternatives and of the conventions prevailing in the context, the agent's history, character, and information all have a bearing on whether particular actions are good. These facts are not easy to ascertain in any case, but when we are looking for a pattern formed of countless good actions over a lifetime, the difficulties are compounded.

In The Philosophy of John Stuart Mill, Alan Ryan suggests there is an underlying unity of conception in Mill's philosophical writing. He identifies this single idea as ‘inductivism’ and, in the first of the two chapters devoted to Mill's ethics, he states that ‘once we understand how this concept of rationality holds together his views on mathematics and justice’, we will find that much ‘light can be shed on the dark places of Mill's philosophy’. No mention will be made in the present essay of Mill's opinions on mathematics, and it is only incidentally concerned with his ideas about justice. However, it shares Ryan's premise that an inductivist interpretation of Mill's moral philosophy is likely to be most enlightening. In particular, our aim is to show how this approach can brighten up two undeniably murky spots in Utilitarianism: the ‘proof passage’ of chapter 4, and the distinction between higher and lower pleasures in chapter 2.