I am going to take the statement: “Value judgements are simply expressions of emotion”, as the kernel of the Emotive Theory and any variant of the Emotive Theory not covered by this statement is left untouched by what I have to say.

Like his earlier Language and Philosophy (1949). and Problems of Analysis (1954), Models and Metaphors is a collection of Black's papers unified by the belief that linguistic considerations can play an important part in framing and solving philosophical problems. Broadly speaking, the linguistic approach takes two forms: (1) examining the uses of a word, or of a set of related words, frequently occurring in philosophical inquiries, either for the general purposes of clarification (e.g., of ‘model’, ‘rule’) or as a useful aid to the solution, or dissolution, of a specific philosophical problem (e.g., of ‘implies’ in connection with ‘What is the relationship between an assertion and its presuppositions ?’); (2) considering questions about language, meaning, and related subjects (e.g., ‘Can one draw valid inferences from premises about grammar to ontological conclusions?’, ‘Do the accusatives of meaning-formulae designate anything?’, or ‘Are necessary statements validated by appealing to linguistic rules?’). Obviously, given that the concepts involved are of language or meaning, the former approach can be readily incorporated in the latter.

In the Tractatus 4.126 Wittgenstein introduces the notion of a formal concept which, he says, needs to be distinguished from the notion of a proper concept, i.e. a concept such as that of “man” which has an ordinary empirical application. The sense in which formal concepts are formal is not that they have anything in particular to do with formal logic or logical form, but that they are concerned with what Wittgenstein called the “form of representation”. That is to say that they are concerned with the ways in which expressions can represent the world. To put it in another way, they are concerned with the use or application to which expressions might be put. (It is sufficiently clear, I think, that a large part of the Tractatus might be rewritten in these terms, in such a way as to leave it consistent with the later Wittgenstein.) Now, it is well known that for the Wittgenstein of the Tractatus it was impossible to say anything about the form of representation of any expression: this could only be shown. Hence Wittgenstein calls these formal concepts “pseudo–concepts”, meaning by this not that there are not such concepts, but that they are incompatible with his theory.

Belief in the ultimacy and distinctiveness of ethical principles has been challenged in many ways to-day. The advance of science, especially in the fields of psychology and anthropology, has provided the relativist and the sceptic with many new weapons to put in their armoury; and the positivist has launched a very subtle attack. The present state of society, both in the internal affairs of the peoples of the world and in their inter-relations, has brought many moral principles into contempt. But there have also been notable advances, especially where more self-effacing virtue is concerned. Philosophers have also rebutted the attacks of the sceptic with peculiar incisiveness and vigour; indeed we know better to-day than at any other time just what we must hold if the objectivity of ethics is to be maintained. How the battle is going is by no means easy to determine. But there is one corner of the field, and that the one from which the most powerful attack of all may be delivered, which the upholder of the ultimacy of moral truths has left almost wholly undefended, so lightly does he estimate the danger from that quarter. That is the religious one. Account has been taken of the arguments of the sociologist and the Freudian psychologist, but it has been assumed, with astonishing naïveté, that religion is an ally to be wholly relied upon. But morality and religion have often been in conflict, and they seem to be so as much as ever to-day. For some of the most powerful forces in our religious life, and those which are in some ways most attuned to our needs, seem to be wholly inimical to the moral life. It is with this aspect of the vast problem of morality and religion that we can best concern ourselves in a course with the general title of “Moral and Political Conflicts of Our Time.”.

Collingwood was hardly in danger. In 1939, when he wrote that, Festschrift volumes for British scholars were rare; for philosophers they were virtually non-existent. Whitehead had been given two, but then he had put himself at risk by going to America. Recently things have changed, and it is no longer safe to stay at home: half a dozen such volumes—at least—were published in honour of British philosophers between 1977 and 1980. But are they really a Bad Thing?

Various proponents of animal rights—for example, H. J. McCloskey— maintain that while brute animals (henceforth ‘animals’) cannot have; moral rights they can have legal rights. Indeed, McCloskey himself goes so far as to maintain that even inanimate objects are able to have legal rights.1 And why should not inanimate objects be able to? After f all, for there to be a legal right is anything more required than that whatever agency is empowered to issue legal rights simply legislate or proclaim that so-and-so has that legal right?

The Upanishadic thinkers arrived at the conception of the Atman—the self—through psychological reflection. By an analysis of consciousness, they concluded that the self was the primary reality. Further, they discovered that it was the same primary reality—the same principle—that formed the basis of the Universe. In this capacity the self was called the Brahman This psychological approach to the problem of ultimate reality is characteristic of the Upanishadic philosophy. It is interesting to note that the writers of the Upanishads have also offered cosmological speculations which led them independently to the positing of absolute existence.

I Take ‘meaning’ and ‘understanding’ as correlative terms: to say of words or other symbols that they have meaning is to say that they are understood, or could be understood, by some interpreter. To specify a meaning fully, one must specify the interpreter or class of interpreters who do or might understand the symbols in a given way. There aretwo ways of doing this for a given utterance of words: we can take the interpretation which the utterer intended (‘meant’) the words to receive, or the interpretation which would be given to them by the majority of speakers of the language to which they belong (or a specially qualified group of such speakers). In the vast majority of cases these interpretationswill coincide; in a small minority of cases they will not. Sometimes a speaker will coin a new word, or use an old word in a new sense. Sometimes he will ignorantly or carelessly intend his words to be interpreted in a way inwhich they would not be interpreted by most understanders of his language. In cases of this kind, we have to distinguish between ‘what the words mean’ and ‘what he meant by the words’. (English judges, in interpreting statutes, are supposed to consider only the former, ignoring the latter; but usually it is rather the latter which matters.) Normally,however, an utterer of words uses them with meanings already determined independently of his use of them (though not, of course, independently of the totality of uses of them).

The most surprising development of philosophy in recent years has been the sudden interest, friendly or hostile, in theology—or at least in the philosophy of religion. Hence the present volume, Faith and Logic, appears at a propitious time. As a series of essays composed by teachers of theology or philosophy in the University of Oxford it follows in the succession of Essays and Reviews (1860), Lux Mundi (1890), and Foundations (1912). Like all of these works it endeavours to adjust Christian, and more specifically Anglican, doctrines to the changing intellectual problems of the contemporary world. Yet perhaps it is the differences that are most striking.

There are several styles of ontological argument. Here are examples of the first style.

God has all perfections.

Existence is a perfection.

∴God exists.

All perfect beings exist.

God is a perfect being.

∴God exists.

God couldn't be improved.

A being that doesn't exist could be improved (by coming to be).

∴God exists.