Bertrand Russell famously disparaged Thomas Aquinas as having ‘little of the true philosophic spirit’, because ‘he does not, like the Platonic Socrates, set out to follow wherever the argument may lead.’ Like many of Russell's pronouncements, this is breathtakingly supercilious and unfair. Still, even an enthusiastic admirer of Aquinas may worry that there is something in it, that there is something wrong with religious ‘commitments’ in philosophy. I examine Russell's objection by comparing standards of permissibility in epistemology with standards of permissibility in ethics, where these issues are better understood. I conclude that the epistemic standard behind Russell's criticism is no less contentious in epistemology than, say, direct utilitarianism is in ethics.

This paper raises complication for the standard interpretive view of Liebniz's mature metaphysical system as idealist. Body-realist affirmations are found in his writings up to his death, in bulk and diversity very difficult to accommodate to phenomenalist or idealist construal. Claims of Leibnizian inconsistency and indecisiveness do not seem adequately to account for them. The view that body is real for Liebniz, though not a substance, is explored. Alternative non-idealist interpretations of the system are considered, the most plausible argued to be a variety of dualism. At the same time, dialectical features of Leibnizian philosophy make it a matter of proper caution not to settle emphatically on a decided conclusion of the issue.

No one doubts that philosophers have discussed at length ‘the problem of induction’, but it would also be generally recognized that there would be disagreement as to precisely what that problem is. Rather than tackle the formulation problem, I will borrow from a popular text:

Our existence as well as science itself is based on the principle of induction that tells us to reason from past frequencies to future likelihoods, from the limited known of the past and present to the unknown of the past, present, and future ... But though inductive probability is psychologically inescapable, we have trouble providing a rational justification for it.

We might say, then, that there is such a practice as induction, and a problem associated with it is that of justifying engaging in it. We engage in reasoning from things we know about the past and present to conclusions about the past, present and future. We can't resist doing this but we have trouble finding a rational justification for doing so. This problem suggests a generalization. We engage in reasoning, reaching new conclusions. It would be hard to resist engaging in this practice. How do we provide a rational justification for it?

There has been public outcry from philosophers and others at the prospect of the closure of Heythrop College, University of London; yet the nature and history of Heythrop remain little known. It is apt and timely, therefore, as its likely dissolution approaches, to provide a brief account of its origins and development up to and including the period of its entry into London University under the leadership of the most famous modern historian of philosophy Frederick Copleston. Following on from this, the idea of a distinctive Jesuit intellectual tradition, and more specifically of the Jesuit contribution to philosophy, is explored.

Robert Hoffman's note, ‘Scientific Research and Moral Rectitude’ (Philosophy, 50 (1975), 475–7), is a highly misleading introduction to this important topic. Hoffman points out (rightly) that there are some people who ‘believe that the researcher's claim to freedom of inquiry should be upheld only if his discovery does not adversely affect mankind or any significant segment thereof’ (475), and his aim is to reject this belief. But such people are right, as can be shown by some counter-arguments and examples. But first a slight qualification is necessary, for, as Hoffman points out, it is impossible before an inquiry to state categorically that its outcome will (or will not) adversely affect mankind. But it may be possible to estimate whether it is likely to affect mankind adversely, and it is surely reasonable to hold that a researcher's claim to freedom of inquiry should not be upheld if it is likely that the inquiry will adversely affect mankind. If a nuclear physicist interested in particle fusion wishes to carry out research which is likely to lead to an uncontrolled nuclear explosion, no one would seriously uphold his right to carry out this research in a laboratory situated in a densely populated area. And to reply that he still has a right to carry out this research alone on a desert island would be to concede, not to circumvent, the claim that scientific research ought to be under the critical eye of moral responsibility. The critic of science would not in any case accept this reply, since he believes not unreasonably that nuclear explosions adversely affect mankind wherever on earth they occur.

I'd like to trace here a great rhetorical-philosophical project which runs through the writings of Plato – his attempt to moralize norms of honor and glory, his attempt to harness the powerful feelings of shame and glory to the ineffectual norms of justice.

This paper is not another attempt to refute, or even primarily to criticize, consequentialist accounts of moral assessment; though I shall indicate the kind of criticism of such accounts which I consider to be philosophically appropriate. My primary aim is to examine the validity of some of the claims made by consequentialists themselves on behalf of their own standpoint. It is frequently maintained that an exclusively consequentialist morality uniquely possesses certain advantages; I shall argue that the case for the superiority of consequentialism has yet to be made out.

Ted Honderich's ‘Causes and If p, even if x, still q’ contains many good points I shall not discuss. My discussion is restricted to some of the points Honderich makes about causal priority in the final two sections of his paper. He considers several proposals, new and old, for accounting for causal priority before he presents a tentativeproposal of his own. He thinks that some of these proposals, besides having difficulties peculiar to themselves, share the deficiency of lacking the proper character. When we look for the difference between causal circumstances and causes, on the one hand, and their effects, on the other, he says,

We are not pursuing any difference between these things. We arepursuing a difference of a certain character. What we are after has to do with what we say: that causes and causal circumstances make their effects happen, and not the other way on, and that causes and causal circumstances explain their effects, and not the other way on.

Those of us who were made to study Pride and Prejudice at school know that Darcy represents pride and Elizabeth represents prejudice. Those of us who have actually read the book know that the situation is a good deal more complicated than that. The motivation for a significant part of the action is Elizabeth's pride, a point that is made quite clearly and is recognized by Elizabeth herself in what sounds like a thoroughly rehearsed speech:

‘How despicably have I acted!’ she cried.—‘I, who have prided myself on my discernment!—I, who have valued myself on my abilities! who have disdained the generous candour of my sister, and gratified my vanity, in useless or blameable distrust.—How humiliating is this discovery!—Yet, how just a humiliation!—Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind. But vanity, not love, has been my folly.—Pleased with the preference of one, and offended by the neglect of the other, on the very beginning of our acquaintance, I have courted prepossession and ignorance, and driven reason away, where either were concerned. Till this moment, I never knew myself’ (pp. 236–7) (All page references are to the Penguin edition of the novel.)

In ‘The Survival Lottery’ John Harris raises the following issue. Suppose it is possible for physicians to save the lives of two patients, Y and Z, otherwise doomed to die through no fault of their own, by taking the life of a third person, P, and using various of his organs appropriately for transplants. To provide a fair and impartial way of selecting the organ donor, a survival lottery is proposed for the society. This lottery randomly selects an organ donor from the population at large. Harris, speaking from the point of view of Y and Z, defends the demand that such a lottery be established. What if anything is wrong with this scheme?

In the Philosophical Review of April, 1953 (pp. 167 ff.), Professor Ryle has drawn an interesting analogy between the use of words and the use of instruments or implements. He holds that this analogy helps us in two ways. Firstly, by asking ‘What is the use of that word?’ rather than ‘What is its meaning?’ we are not lead to suppose that for every word there is a correlate entity which is its meaning. Secondly, if we regard using words as exercising a technique, we admit that words can be misused as well as properly used; and part, at least, of a philosopher’'s task, on Ryle’s view, is to give an account of these proper uses.