Yves R. Simon is sometimes thought to be a rather obscure philosopher, who came somehow, as if it all dropped out of the sky one day, to write a remarkable book on democratic theory. Near the very end of his life, he appeared especially interested in protecting the sphere of practical judgment or prudence from both philosophy and social science. Simon provided some striking formulations that assist his readers in understanding this grand and significant set of relationships and how ultimate science, or metaphysics, can proceed. This chapter sketches Simon's understanding of the nature and object of philosophy, in fact of all science or rational learning. Yves Simon, who had rejected literary approaches to philosophy for system, rigor of demonstration, and assurance, seemed aware all along that the preparation for human action, for prudent human action, required more than the science of philosophy.

This chapter presents an interpretation of the first twenty or so sections of the Philosophical Investigations. For Wittgenstein, meaningful language is ultimately a kind of human action, indeed the characteristic kind of human action. This chapter compares and contrasts Wittgenstein's philosophical intentions in the Philosophical Investigations with his intentions in the earlier TractatusLogico-Philosophicus. It then explicates the meaning-is-use thesis, unpacking Wittgenstein's opening argument for the meaning-is-use thesis. It concludes, on Wittgenstein's behalf, that the thesis that meaning-is-use is the best overall explanation of all the relevant meaning-facts or meaning-phenomena. From Steps A, B and C presented in the chapter, it follows that the meaning-is-use thesis is true, including the important qualification that sometimes the human act of ostending an object that bears a name also explains the meaning of that name. In this way, the Augustinian theory of language leads directly from Referentialism to human action.

The religious anthropology of the Sages of the rabbinic era, that is, their conception(s) of man, sin, and redemption, is one of the absolute foundations of Judaism both as a theological Weltanschauung and as a lived religious practice. This chapter attempts a reasonable summary and exploration of these views. God's creative, omnipotent and sustaining power over against humankind's dependency and finitude necessarily, and rightly, places men and women in a position of subordination. In rabbinic Judaism, redemption is conceived of as an "earned response" - human beings merit redemption through their good deeds and through their "repentance". The dialectic of the covenantal bond, of God as a member of the community in relation, is nowhere more evident than in the repentance - redemption sequence. The repentance of men and women may seem, in the larger order of things, an insignificant matter compared to God's mighty act of redemption.