bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Gentile's Philosophy of the Spirit
Authors: Burgh W. G. De
Published: February 2009

Gentile's philosophy merits the attention of every serious thinker, for it presents the doctrine that reality is spiritual in a more uncompromising form than is to be found elsewhere, and claims to solve on this principle all the great problems that have beset the history of metaphysic. His own name for it is Absolute or Actual Idealism (Idealismo assoluto or attuale). For Gentile, nothing is real but the Spirit, and by the Spirit he means the pure act of self-conscious thinking. “The subject that conceives itself in conceiving All is the reality itself.” In the act of conscious thinking, the Spirit is present in its entirety as subject (Io universale, transcendentale, assoluto); generating therein by its own creative spontaneity a world of objects, and resolving the products of this act of objectification into the womb that gave them birth. In this immanent dialectic–pure subject (thesis), pure object (antithesis), subject-object (synthesis)–lies the rhythmic life-history of the Spirit. “Our doctrine,” writes Gentile, “is the theory of the Spirit as act which posits its object in a multiplicity of objects, resolving their multiplicity and objectivity in the unity of the subject itself.” For such a doctrine, transcendence is the enemy, the Goliath whom Gentile has gone forth to slay. He confronts us, on almost every page of his writings, with an ineluctable dilemma. Either a philosophy of sheer immanence, or reality is unknowable.
The Possibility of Rationalism in Ethics
Authors: Laird John
Published: February 2009

An ethic is rational if it can justify itself rationally—that is to say, if there is a “why” and a “wherefore” in it amenable to reflection, and underivative. An ethic, on the other hand, is irrational if reason and reflection are irrelevant to it, or if, being relevant, they are fundamentally subordinate, and are only the lackeys of a governing consideration which is either irrational or non-rational. The intention of this lecture is to explore the possibilities of rationalism in ethics, supposing that the meaning of rationalism is, broadly speaking, what has just been stated.
The Physical World
Authors: Walker Leslie J.
Published: February 2009

Simplicius, writing in the sixth century, distinguishes physical science from astronomy on the ground that, whereas it is the function of the physicist to “inquire into the nature of the heavens and the stars, into their potentialities, their quality, their becoming and passing away,” astronomy has no competence in questions of this primary character. Its function is “to determine the order of the heavenly bodies, their figures, magnitudes, distances from the earth, sun and moon, their eclipses, conjunctions, the quantitative and qualitative properties of their motions,” etc. For this purpose it requires arithmetic and geometry, but cares not how the heavenly motions be described, whether in terms of excentrics or epicycles, so long as the appearances can thus be accounted for.
The Relativity of Free Will
Authors: Samuel Herbert
Published: February 2009

I was led to philosophy by politics. There can be no foundation for political action except in ethics; and there can be no foundation for ethics except in some form of metaphysics, whether religious or other. And one cannot travel very far along the philosophic road— particularly if one has in mind the need of arriving at some definite destination—without finding as an obstacle the perennial problem of Free Will. It is an obstacle which has somehow to be crossed. It cannot be evaded or ignored. The man who is dealing with public affairs—with the principles of Criminal Law, for example, or with the factors that make for peace or war, and indeed with any of the major questions that confront our society—if he tries to think things out, is faced constantly by the problem of individual human responsibility; just as the man of religion is faced by it constantly.
Form and Content in Art
Authors: Collingwood R. G.
Published: February 2009

Even the best of artists are human, and therefore capable of turning out bad work. The father of poets has set his children the example of nodding, and small blame to his children if in this, as in other matters, they have followed where Homer led. Critics, that hardy and self-sacrificing race of beings who voluntarily incur the enmity of artists for the sake of the common welfare, have to classify the various manners and causes of nodding in poets. I do not claim to be a critic, but I want to call your attention to a particular kind of nodding which presents a curious problem in the theory of art. I will call it the nod of the uncongenial subject.
McTaggart's Contribution to the Philosophy of Religion
Authors: Patterson Robert Leet
Published: February 2009

The title of this paper may, at first glance, somewhat surprise the casual reader. That the writings of a philosopher who was, by his own confession, an atheist should contain a trenchant critique of the theistic position is only to be expected; but the suggestion that any positive contribution to the philosophy of religion can be found in them may appear somewhat startling, and even paradoxical.
Interaction an Cosmic Structure
Authors: Boodin John E.
Published: February 2009

It is a momentous venture to attempt to frame an hypothesis of the universe. But if we reflect upon the meaning of life, we are forced to make such an effort. The only way we can escape the responsibility is to be guilty of the great refusal—the refusal to think. If we frame an hypothesis, it should be such as to assign the proper significance to all the facts of human experience—not merely the physical facts, but the biological and mental as well; not merely our scientific interests, but our æsthetic, ethical, and religious interests as well. And it should do so in the simplest possible way. It would be futile and impossible to examine all possible solutions. Henri Poincaré proved long ago that if there is one explanation of a class of phenomena, there are an infinite number of explanations.
A Phenomenological System of Ethics (II)
Authors: Clarke Mary Evelyn
Published: February 2009

The manner in which the phenomenological method has been applied to the data of ethics by Max Scheler, and his resulting criticisms of the formalism of classical theories of an absolute good and the subjectivity and relativity of the opposing “content theories,” have been discussed in a previous article. It is the purpose of the present paper to present Scheler’s claim to have resolved this dilemma in ethics by laying bare a structure of value too often obscured by the series of falsifications and confusions that he has exposed.
Two Philosophers of the Oxford Movement
Authors: Webb Clement C. J.
Published: February 2009

This year is being celebrated by a large number of our fellow-countrymen as the centenary of a movement, associated with the name of the University of Oxford, of which, although in its first stage it might easily be mistaken—and has often been mistaken—for a mere wave of theological and ecclesiastical reaction within the Established Church of England, the attentive historian of the nineteenth century must take account as in fact a very powerful influence in the religious and, no less really though to a less degree, in the social and political life of the whole nation. Considerable, however, as is the importance which may justly be attributed in other respects to what is known as the Oxford Movement, the professed student of philosophy may be excused if he is chiefly struck by the apparent remoteness of its original leaders from the currents of speculative thought characteristic of the period in which it began its course. There were perhaps among them only two who can be named as contributors to philosophical literature in the technical sense now commonly borne by the term “philosophical”; and the contributions even of these two can scarcely be said to have taken their place among the works to which an ordinary teacher of philosophy would be likely to direct the attention of his pupils. To these two, however, John Henry Newman and William George Ward, I propose to devote here a few pages which may be found not without interest to readers of Philosophy.
The Sense of the Horizon
Authors: Burns C. Delisle
Published: February 2009

Not for the first time in the history of our tradition, we are conscious of the defects of our inheritance and look doubtfully forward to a future whose structure we can hardly surmise. There was a Decline of the West in the first years of our era and again at the close of the Middle Ages. Now once more the beliefs and customs are shaken, on which our tradition is based; and there is no certainty that we shall carry forward what that tradition has so far achieved into a new form of civilized life. But, on the other hand, there is no reason to suppose that Western Civilization will disappear.
The Study of Economic Activity
Authors: Knox T. M.
Published: February 2009

This paper is concerned with the study of economic activity from two points of view; the first is that of the man of business, and his problem is “Of what use or value is the study of the activity to those who are actually engaged in the activity?” He has continually to grapple with individual and concrete situations and thus feels the clash between them and the abstract general pronouncements of certain economic studies: consequently he is bound to ask whether the latter have in fact any relevance for him at all.
Physical Influence and Mental Reference
Authors: Morgan C. Lloyd
Published: February 2009

In a scientific discussion of the processes which we (or some of us) designate “vital,” attention is concentrated on an interpretation of that which happens within a relational system of physical influence. In a scientific discussion of the processes which we reflectively distinguish as “mental,” attention is directed to what occurs in a relational system of psychological reference. We should seek to distinguish each from the other in any given context where both are in evidence.
The “Objects” Of Historical Knowledge
Authors: Gardiner Patrick
Published: February 2009

In this article I want to consider a short passage from R. G. Collingwood's The Idea of History. I have chosen the passage in question both because it seems to me, for reasons which will become clear later, to contain the kernel of much that Collingwood himself wished to say on the subject of historical knowledge, and also because it implies a still widely held (and, I shall maintain, incorrect) conception of the nature of such knowledge.
Art in the Republic
Authors: Grey D. R.
Published: February 2009

The general thesis which I should wish to sustain on this topic is by no means new. It is, briefly, that even in the Republic, where the views on art which Plato propounds are notoriously unsatisfactory to the modern mind, this unsatisfactoriness is not due to any lack of aesthetic sympathy on Plato's part, but on the contrary to what is almost an excess of it. The position as far as I can understand it is this: the true artist (at least for the period of Platonic thought of which the Republic marks the culmination) is the philosopher, and true artistic insight is episteme. The work of art par excellence is primarily the philosopher's own life-that is, the philosopher himself.
The Philosopher's Defence Of Morality
Authors: Foot Philippa
Published: February 2009

Philosophers are often asked whether they can provide a defence against hostile theories which are said to be “undermining the foundations of morality,” and they often try to do so. But before anything of this kind is attempted we should surely ask whether morality could be threatened in this way. If what people have in mind is simply that the spread of certain doctrines leads to the growth of indifference about right and wrong there is no philosophical problem involved. So long as we treat the matter as a case of cause and effect it will belong rather to the psychologist than the philosopher, and we have no reason for questioning that correlations of this kind may exist. But this is not the assumption, or not the only one, for people undoubtedly do think that if certain doctrines could be proved then moral judgment would have been shown to be “nonsensical,” “meaningless,” or “invalid,” so that thereafter it would be not merely difficult but positively irrational to formulate and attempt to follow moral principles. It would be simple enough if the attack was supposed to be against some particular moral code, for there are recognized ways of arguing that a thing is not right but wrong. But when it is morality in general which is to be disproved or discredited it is difficult to see what this means or how it could be done. What would have to be shown is not that this or that is not right, but that nothing is—or not in the old sense so that attacking moral judgment is not like attacking a theory but more like attacking theorizing itself, which shows where the difficulty lies. If something is stated it can be denied or disproved, but a moral judgment does not contain statements except about what in particular is right or wrong. Yet many people, though they would probably reject a request for a justification of morality in the form of some argument as to why we should do our duty, feel that morality would be in a positive sense unjustifiable if certain supporting truths were knocked away from the structure. This may indeed be so, but we are unable to show that it is, or to explain the matter by appealing to “presuppositions” of morality, which besides being far too vague would too easily include much that was linked merely psychologically to the recognition of obligation. I propose, therefore, to look at some specific arguments which are supposed by those who resist them to constitute a threat to morality, and to ask whether this supposition is justified.
What is Theology?
Authors: Lewis H. D.
Published: February 2009

Few people, I imagine, would be disconcerted to learn that it is not very easy to provide a philosophical account of their activities; and this holds no less when these activities are of an intellectual nature. Historians and mathematicians and scientists do not wait in that fashion upon the deliberations of philosophers; and a good thing it is for them, too. For their patience might otherwise be rather severely tried, since disagreement and dispute appear to be the life-blood of philosophy. Nonetheless philosophical questions about these and other activities are not irrelevant to practice.
Professor Flew On Punishment
Authors: Mabbott J. D.
Published: February 2009

Professor Flew's vigorous and interesting paper, “The Justification of Punishment,” in PHILOSOPHY for October 1954 discusses my article on Punishment in Mind for April 1939. It merits some rejoinder. Flew's paper ranges far beyond the particular issue of punishment, and much of what is most interesting in it has this wider relevance. I, too, therefore shall use punishment as a peg on which to hang some discussion of the wider problems of ethics.
Platonism And The Rise Of Science
Authors: Carré Meyrick H.
Published: February 2009

The scientific developments of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have traditionally been associated with the revival of Platonism. The natural philosophers who invented the methods of classical physics have usually been depicted as men who repudiated the principles of Aristotle and embraced conceptions provided by the writings of Plato and his school. The characteristic feature derived from Platonism was the emphasis on mathematics and it is with the application of mathematics to experience, under specially devised conditions, that modern science arose. In this sense, it is the Piatonism of Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo, which forms the distinctive quality of the scientific revolution that culminates in the work of Newton.
The Ethics of Dignity
Authors: Laird John
Published: February 2009

In the pages that are to follow I shall try to discuss the validity and the sufficiency of a celebrated moral principle of Kant's “So act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of any other, always as an end, never merely as a means.” In doing so, I shall say quite a lot about Kant, because his statement of the principle has had great influence, because he gave his genius to its elaboration, because he illustrated and defended it in ways that deserve a close examination. On the other hand, my principal purpose is not to supply a piece of Kantian exegesis interspersed with sundry criticisms. In the main I want to discuss the principle, as people say, “on its merits.” In so far as I discuss Kant himself, I am doing so with the object of eliciting these merits.
The Ethics of Pacifism
Authors: Ritchie A. D.
Published: February 2009

Everybody is to some extent pacific, as everybody prefers to attain his ends by peaceful means if he can. Even the most bloodthirsty militarist uses threats of war rather than war, if threats will do the work. Though most people prefer persuasion to violence and peace to war, they are prepared as a last resort to go to war and use violence, when that seems the only means to attaining some end they consider to be of vital importance. The one hundred per cent pacifist, however, refuses to engage in war or support warlike action under any circumstances whatever. It is his case that I wish to consider. It is not my purpose to try to persuade anyone to be a pacifist or to be the opposite, but to point out that absolute pacifism carries with it certain logical consequences which are not particularly palatable. The opposed view, which I shall call the case for civic virtues, also carries unpalatable though different consequences. These two appear to be simple and clear-cut opposed views which I propose to state as fairly as I can, with their consequences. Certain qualifications and modifications will have to be considered later, but I do not think that there is actually any possible mean position which avoids the dilemma I am concerned to present. I shall state the case for civic virtue first and the pacifist case second.
The Ethical Importance Of Sympathy
Authors: Acton H. B.
Published: February 2009

It seems natural enough to suppose that there must be some very close connection between our feelings of sympathy and our moral principles. A large part, at any rate, of the badness of bad men seems to consist in their lack of real concern for other people, and a large part of the goodness of good men consists in the regard they have for their fellows. Could a man who never felt with of for another be regarded as good, or even as a moral being at all ? We should be inclined to say that this was impossible were it not that some philosophers appear to maintain that reason is the fundamental moral requirement and that unsympathetic beings might act rightly from some purely rational principle. Kant, for example, in a well-known passage, contrasts the man who helps others because he is sympathetically inclined towards them with the man who is too unhappy to feel with them but nevertheless helps them because he thinks he ought to. It is the second of these men, in his view, whose action is most clearly moral. In reply to this we may say that although a man's personal griefs at a particular time may render him at that time unable to feel with others even though he helps them as he ought, nevertheless he could not have performed such an act of heroic beneficence if his heart had never warmed towards anybody.
Hume on is and Ought
Authors: Hunter Geoffrey
Published: February 2009

Was Hume here claiming or implying that propositions about what men ought to do are radically different from purely factual propositions, and that they cannot ever be entailed by any purely factual propositions? No, despite Mr Hare, Professor Nowell-Smith, Professor Ayer, Miss Murdoch, Professor Flew, Mr Basson, and The Observer's Brief Guide to philosophy.
Responsibility and Mental Health
Authors: Lewis H. D.
Published: February 2009

This book by Dr Barbara Wootton (now Baroness Wootton) has already been widely acclaimed as an exceptionally shrewd and timely assessment of the methods and achievements of the social sciences today. She herself has much experience of social work and of the systematic investigation of social problems. She believes in social science and expects a great deal from it. This lends additional weight to the critical side of her work. Her strictures, although sometimes severe, are not those of the hostile critic out from the start to demolish and discredit. Her concern is plainly to see the subject established on as firm a basis as possible and set on a course which will give it the maximum usefulness.
A Perfection Theory Of The Good
Authors: Walhout Donald
Published: February 2009

In this paper I wish to set forth as plainly and simply as possible a theory of the good which finds little modern vogue, but which nevertheless seems to me more plausible than any of those now current. The perfection theory of the good can claim weighty historical roots, especially in Plato and Aristotle; but I shall proceed systematically rather than historically. The exposition of the theory will be presented in three parts: first, a statement of a generic definition of perfection; second, an attempt to give more specific content to the definition; and third, an indication of my reasons for upholding the truth of the theory.
The Objectivity Of History
Authors: Passmore J. A.
Published: February 2009

“There's one thing certain,” said a historian of my acquaintance when he heard the title of this paper, “that's a problem which would never perturb a working-historian.” He was wrong: a working-historian first drew it to my attention; and in one form or another it raises its head whenever historians discuss the nature of their own inquiries. Yet in a way he was right. His mind had turned to the controversies of epistemologists, controversies about “the possibility of knowledge”; historians, he rightly felt, do not trouble their-heads about such matters.
Maclntyre On Defining Morality
Authors: Frankena William K.
Published: February 2009

IN “What Morality is Not”, Philosophy, XXXII (1957), Mr. Alasdair Maclntyre argues against the view, now common, “that universal–izability is of the essence of moral valuation”. On page 331 he uses an argument which is an adaptation and extension of Moore's naturalistic fallacy argument, and which is generalizable. As Moore's argument, if cogent, holds against all definitions of “good”, “right”, etc., so Maclntyre's argument, if good, holds against all definitions of “moral” and “morality”. For this reason I shall examine his argument, as I once examined Moore's.1 I wish to do this partly because I should like to go on looking for definitions or elucidations of words like “moral” such as are contained in the uni–versalizability view, and partly in order to air some general questions which are raised by what Maclntyre says.
Leibniz's Contribution to the Theory of Innate Ideas
Authors: Savile Anthony
Published: February 2009

Does Leibniz really worst Locke in respect of innate ideas, as is frequently supposed, or does Locke emerge more or less whole from their epistemological dispute? I shall here argue that Leibniz does far less well than we might like to believe and that his substantive proposals, where not entirely innocuous, contain little that would appeal to anyone interested in a modern form of the innateness thesis.
Bernard Mandeville and the Reality of Virtue
Authors: Colman John
Published: February 2009

Although his subject matter is far from abstract and his arguments comparatively free from obscurity, Bernard Mandeville has generally been acknowledged a difficult philosopher. It is not hard to see why. First, Mandeville deliberately sets out to generate paradoxes. Secondly, he is not a systematic writer. His views are expounded and developed in a number of works of which The Fable of the Bees is only the best known. Thirdly, and most important, he is not solely a philosopher, but also a satirist. His satire is intertwined with his purely philosophical theories and his style is often highly ironic. Any interpretation of Mandeville must consider his philosophical and his satirical intentions.
Marx's Concept of Ideology
Authors: Drucker H. M.
Published: February 2009

The concept of ideology plays an important part in contemporary social and political thinking. In many works which raise the question about the relationship between what men think and how their societies operate some mention of ideology is made. Since the variety of thinkers who write about this relationship have a variety of views on the subject, it is not at all surprising that they disagree about just what an ideology is. It might be helpful if we could agree on just one usage, or, failing that, understand why a variety of usages is necessary and understand them.
On Some Attempted Criticism
Authors: Holland R. F.
Published: February 2009

Christopher Cherry's article in the January 1973 issue of this journal has on its first page the sentence ‘And when a philosopher writes that “no clear idea is available to us of what moral scepticism amounts to”, that moral scepticism would, if it were possible at all, have to be a “specially cooked-up affair” by contrast with other varieties of scepticism, it is hard not to accuse him of just such a vice.’ He means the vice of disingenuousness and the person to whom he attributes it is me. I did not write what he says I wrote and neither of his quotations is accurate. On the next page Cherry claims again to be summarizing a view of mine when he says that ‘An “intellectual moral scepticism” would, if it were anything, have to be a peculiarly cooked-up affair, and so by implication different from other forms of intellectual philosophical scepticism. It is not a species of the same genus.’
Denial of the SyntheticA Priori
Authors: Johnson Oliver A.
Published: February 2009

In his essay “Logical Empiricism”, in the anthologyTwentieth Century Philosophy, Professor Feigl writes: “All forms of empiricism agree in repudiating the existence of synthetic a priori knowledge.”2Schlick makes the same point even more forcibly: “The empiricism which I represent believes itself to be clear on the point that, as a matter of principle, all propositions are either synthetic a posteriori or tautologous; synthetic aprioripropositions seem to it to be a logical impossibility.”3 The denial of synthetic apriorisis a major thesis of the logical empiricist position, being found in the writings of most of the leaders of the movement.4 The reason for its importance is fairly clear. It provides a formula on which the empiricists can base their critique of traditional philosophy. To use Ayer's phrase, denial of the synthetic aprioriresults in “the elimination of metaphysics”. The philosophical tradition to which the empiricists are opposed and whose “metaphysics” they wish to eliminate can be called, somewhat loosely, rationalism.
Right and Good: Action Sub Ratione Boni
Authors: De Burgh W. G.
Published: February 2009

“All men desire the good.” This doctrine, which lay at the root of the ethics and also of a great part of the metaphysics of Greek and mediæval thinkers, is either a truism or a paradox, according to the interpretation we place upon it. Its meaning is far from obvious; it veils a multitude of implications and has given rise to a swarm of misconceptions. It has been assumed that all desire is sub ratione boni; nay more, the good has been defined as the object of universal desire, as “that at which all things aim.” The view that desire is conditioned by prior apprehension of the good has provoked the rejoinder that desires precede consciousness of their end, that cognition is the result of, or at least concomitant with, the conative process which reveals it. Again, it may be asked whether the gooddesired is necessarily my own good, so that its attainment may beconstrued as self-realization; and, if so, whether it is private tomyself or a common good which can be shared with others. Is heereone absolute Good, knowable by man, to which all other goodsare relative? Is it possible to pass beyond what we opine and believeto be good, so as to know and desire what is “really” good?
Nietzsche and Epicurean Philosophy
Authors: Knight A. H. J.
Published: February 2009

Nietzsche's opinions on philosophy and aesthetics developed under strong and lasting impulses from classical antiquity. These were not always the same, for at various periods in his life Nietzsche placed Heraclitus, Empedocles, Aeschylus, and even Socrates and Plato on the highest summit of wisdom. In his so-called first stage of development the pre-Socratics (especially Heraclitus) were generally his favourite thinkers, and in the third and last stage these same figures tend to come into prominence again. On the other hand, in the works of Nietzsche's second, rationalistic period, when he was particularly influenced by Comte, Voltaire, and Darwin, Socrates and Plato—usually so hated and despised—are mentioned with affection, with gratitude or even with warm enthusiasm; and so, over and over again, is Epicurus.
Philosophy in Italy
Authors: de Ruggiero Guido
Published: February 2009

There has lately been published a posthumous work on “pure realism” by an Italian philosopher who died a little while ago at an early age. He had been working on the book for some time with great concentration of energy, but did not live to finish it. In the form in which it has been edited for publication some parts of it have been developed almost to completion, while others are mere sketches and notes—though not wanting in interest, for they reveal the author's method of working, and expose doubts and difficulties in the immediate form in which they presented themselves to his mind and found the way to a solution. The most complete section is one dealing with the critique of idealism, a critique which, while it is not devoid of ingenuity, is in the main stringent and vigorous, and deserves particularly the consideration of idealists. The principal thesis is that there are two possible solutions of the problem of consciousness. It admits the possibility either that consciousness itself creates its own world, endowing it, thanks to the action of the mind on its own images, with those physical attributes that make it appear external to the subject or independent of the activity by virtue of which it is formed (idealism); or that consciousness is the immediate revelation of the world itself to itself, a revelation that can only consist in a unique act whereby the world establishes itself as identical with itself and as different from itself, as internal and external knowing and known, spirit and nature (realism). At the basis of idealism, according to Ranzoli, is the implied presupposition (of the philosophy of Empedocles) that like is conscious only of like, and at the basis of realism is the Anaxagorean presupposition that opposite is conscious of opposite.
Toynbee and his Critics
Authors: Birks G. A.
Published: February 2009

New ideas are seldom received with moderation. When Spengler's Decline of the West appeared it was greeted with wild enthusiasm, which collapsed like a pricked bubble under criticism. Now that Toynbee, a generation later, has taken up the theme, there seems to be a determination not to be caught a second time. His critics have no wish to be unfair, and much of what they say is true enough; but to anybody who has a sympathetic understanding of what he is attempting most of it seems entirely irrelevant and misleading.

Toynbee's critics fall broadly into two classes—those for whom he says too little, and those for whom he says too much. In the first class are those who complain that he does not define his civilizations, that he does not say whether he is for or against Christianity, or that he does not explain how the deterministic aspects of his results can be reconciled with his liberalism and his avowed belief in free will. Yet if Toynbee had given precise answers to these and other questions, if he had come forward with a cut-and-dried philosophical system, these same critics might well have been the first to complain that he was imposing a priori conceptions on the facts of history—a charge that has been made against every philosophy of history, and one which it is very difficult to refute. Surely we can respect the integrity of a historian who declines to go beyond the facts, or adopt opinions before compelled by the evidence.
Authenticity, Metaphysics, and Moral Responsibility
Authors: Olson Robert G.
Published: February 2009

MR. A is a liar. He repeatedly tells untruths, sometimes with malicious intent, sometimes for the purpose of dramatizing himself. Although he is perfectly aware of telling these untruths, he none the less ardently proclaims to himself and to others his complete honesty. In doing so it is no part of his intention to deny or to overlook the facts of the case. On the contrary he confesses his misdeeds with an embarrassing frankness. Mr. A's intention is to explain and to excuse these misdeeds. He says that each of his lies has been required by some accidental or unusual external circumstance, that his true inner self is in no way responsible for them and in no way affected by them. By nature, in his essence, he is absolutely honest.
A Theory of Punishment
Authors: Miller W. A.
Published: February 2009

The Object of this paper is the development of a view of punishment which incorporates what is of importance in retributive and utilitarian justifications of the practice of punishment. This proposed theory was noted and referred to as the plene esse, but not fully worked out, in the course of a discussion paper (‘Mr Quinton on “an odd sort of right”’) in which my concern was to offer an alternative view, to that of Mr Anthony Quinton, by construing ‘the right to punishment’ as meaning that ‘the offender has the right to be regarded as responsible for his actions’.
Deserved Punishment, Deserved Harm, Deserved Blame
Authors: Stern Laurence
Published: February 2009

My aim in this paper will be to show that the concept of desert remains an important and useful concept even if one supposes that the justification of praise, blame, punishment, and reward lies solely in their influence on behaviour. The argument will be incomplete, however. I will discuss only deserved legal punishment, the broader notion of deserved harm, and, briefly, deserved blame.
Religious and Secular Statements
Authors: Mellor D. H.
Published: February 2009

The relation between religious and scientific explanations of events and states of affairs has been the subject of much debate. For example, are the statements

‘John's life was saved by surgery’

‘John's life was saved in answer to prayer’

in competition with each other and, if so, in what way? They do not seem to be rival causal explanations, nor are they straightforwardly contradictory. Yet each seems to cast doubt on the other, or at least to make it to some extent redundant.
The Conscience of Huckleberry Finn
Authors: Bennett Jonathan
Published: February 2009

In this paper, I shall present not just the conscience of Huckleberry Finn but two others as well. One of them is the conscience of Heinrich Himmler. He became a Nazi in 1923; he served drably and quietly, but well, and was rewarded with increasing responsibility and power. At the peak of his career he held many offices and commands, of which the most powerful was that of leader of the S.S.—the principal police force of the Nazi regime. In this capacity, Himmler commanded the whole concentration-camp system, and was responsible for the execution of the so-called ‘final solution of the Jewish problem’. It is important for my purposes that this piece of social engineering should be thought of not abstractly but in concrete terms of Jewish families being marched to what they think are bath-houses, to the accompaniment of loud-speaker renditions of extracts from The Merry Widow and Tales of Hoffman, there to be choked to death by poisonous gases. Altogether, Himmler succeeded in murdering about four and a half million of them, as well as several million gentiles, mainly Poles and Russians.
The Game Game
Authors: Midgley Mary
Published: February 2009

Some time ago, an Innocent Bystander, after glancing through a copy of Mind, asked me, ‘Why do philosophers talk so much about Games? Do they play them a lot or something?’
Interests and Moral Ideals
Authors: Berki R. N.
Published: February 2009

I would like to develop a few critical observations on some substantive moral ideas propounded in Professor R. M. Hare's Freedom and Reason a work where formal and substantive moral arguments are blended in an attractive and plausible, though at times somewhat exasperating, mixture. Hare's formal doctrines, the celebrated theses of prescriptivity and universalizability, will not as such interest me here, though I shall have to take notice of at least one of them, viz. universalizability, in so far as it has a bearing on what I take to be Hare's substantive position. The arguments in Freedom and Reason are compounded of Kantian and utilitarian elements, and culminate in Hare's conceptualization of two antithetical types of person, whom he calls respectively the ‘liberal’ and the ‘fanatic’. This distinction itself is based on a rigid and uncompromising dichotomy of ‘interest’ and ‘ideal’, and it is on this dichotomy that Hare's substantive moral doctrine hinges. Hare's argument is that the morally good person is one who subordinates his ideal to a moral principle that takes interests into account, in contradistinction to the fanatic who allows interests to be overridden by his ideal. There is much to recommend in this doctrine, and distinctions of this nature can and ought to be drawn. But the way in which it is done in Hare's work opens up fresh doubts and fails to solve some fundamental problems. As I do not think that his distinction between ‘interest’ and ‘ideal’ is tenable, I cannot agree wholly to the predominantly formal manner in which Hare deals with the important question of distinguishing between liberalism and fanaticism. The upshot of my arguments is that this distinction can only be made intelligible in substantive terms. Although I cannot here offer a positive alternative to Hare beyond some oblique hints at the end, my critical remarks on Hare's doctrine ought at least to go some way in establishing the need for such an alternative.
Between Analytic and Empirical
Authors: Watkins J. W. N.
Published: February 2009

One of the most serious pre-occupations of post-medieval philosophy has been to distinguish those kinds of assertion which are either true or false from those which are neither true nor false. A solution to this problem would be of the highest importance. It would indicate in what areas rational inquiry has some hope of success and in what areas it is doomed to frustration. It would tell us, for example, whether it is worth trying to think about the possible mistakenness of our moral principles, or whether such thinking is bound to be ineffective since no truth or falsity attaches to them.
Thinking and Machines
Authors: George F. H.
Published: February 2009

Professor A. D. Ritchie's remarks (Philosophy, January 1957, p. 65) cannot go without some reply, since otherwise they would only have the effect of increasing the already considerable confusion on the subject of Cybernetics.
Can I Have A Duty To Believe In God?
Authors: Harrison Jonathan
Published: February 2009

The question I have asked, whether or not we can have a duty to believe in God, must be clearly distinguished from the question whether or not there is a God. It is possible to hold that there is a God and that I have a duty to believe that there is, but it is also possible to hold that there is a God, and I do not have a duty to believe that there is; that there is not a God, and I do not have a duty to believe there is; and that there is not a God, but I do have a duty to believe that there is. This last statement is somewhat implausible—though people have held that though there is not a God, we have a duty to produce belief that there is in others— and anyone making it would be showing thereby, if he believed it, that he himself had not done his duty. It should be noticed that any one trying to convince an atheist that he has a duty to believe in God must be trying to persuade him to accept this statement: that he, the atheist, has a duty to believe in God, although there is no God. That his belief that there is no God is false, if it is false, does not make the task any the more easy.
Philosophical Survey
Authors: Montefiore Alan
Published: February 2009

The eighth Congrès des Sociétés de Philosophic de Langue Française at Toulouse, which, I should perhaps explain, was the first gathering of its sort to which I have been, was just about as unlike a Joint Session as an English philosopher might well have imagined it to be. Many of the differences arose naturally from the simple facts that French philosophy is very unlike British and that philosophers in France are greeted with banquets, civic receptions, concerts and other hospitable entertainments when they meet together in congress. But there are other differences too. For one thing, the contributions are not only as a rule very different in content; they are also different in form. A general theme (a very general theme) is set with a certain number of sub–headings. Then anybody who wishes may submit a “communication,” having if possible at least some appearance of relevance to the titular theme–though if this is not possible, it doesn't seem to matter very much as it may be included all the same. Obviously enough, if some share of the available space and time is to be given to every philosopher who wants it, (and in France, where philosophy is a school subject, there are a very great number of philosophers), nobody is going to get very much. The result of all this is to be seen for this year in the Acts of the Congress L'Homme et son prochain (Presses Universitaires), where hardly any of the no less than 76 contributors has more than four pages to himself. (At the Congress itself, the author of each such communication was allocated 3/4 hour for exposition and discussion. The five addresses which were given at full length before the whole assembly meeting together, and which included one superb performance in the manner of a philosophic chansonnier, are not included in this volume, but are to be published separately.) In the circumstances it would have been wholly surprising if such Acts had turned out to be anything other than a mainly tedious assortment of mostly undistinguished fragments, which is not, I fear, likely to prove of much interest to any reader of this Survey; which is a pity, as it is not only the receptions and the outings that make this Congress worth attending.
Professor Ayer's“The Problem Of Knowledge”
Authors: Strawson P. F.
Published: February 2009

Professor Ayer's new book1 is of very great interest. All the discussion is skilful, much of it is ingenious; the arguments ramify, but never get out of control; the prose is pleasant, the presentation polished and civilized. Once before, Professor Ayer investigated the foundations of empirical knowledge; and the central topics of his new book are, to a large extent, the same as those of his earlier one. These are topics which have been much discussed since 1940. Ayer takes account of many of these discussions, and his views, in consequence, have changed. They have not changed quite so radically as one might have expected. Ayer thinks that the old-style sceptic ought still to be given a run on the old course against the old competitors. If I am not mistaken, it is important to keep this guiding thought in mind in trying to understand his book. For it is easy to glide comfortably over the smooth surface of this prose without noticing transitions and modulations which, in a less expertly composed treatise, might have given one a jolt.
Physics and the Ontological Problem
Authors: Tyrrell G. N. M.
Published: February 2009

If there is one question which stands forth pre-eminently from among the many problems with which physical science bristles, it is that of the ontological status of the world which physics is exploring. What is reality in the eyes of science, and what are we to understand the physicist to mean when he refers to the “real world”? Can we agree with him when he assures us that physical science represents a progress towards pure truth? There seems to be a certain reluctance on the part of twentieth-century physicists to face the ontological question which I think their colleagues of the nineteenth century did not share to the same extent.
The Paragon of Knowledge
Authors: Britton Karl
Published: February 2009

I. “Our reason must be consider'd as a kind of cause, of which truth is the natural effect.”1 In these quaint words, David Hume expresses the Philosophers’ point of view. By means of reason we must be able to see the truth of principles and to see that truth without any possibility of error. This view has been so long and so firmly held that it may be called the philosophical ideal of knowledge. Reason is not truly reason, unless by it we can come to know truths that are absolutely certain; truths of principle that are absolutely universal. It has always been admitted that much that is called “knowledge” in ordinary conversation, much that passes for knowledge in the schools, is neither absolutely certain nor absolutely universal. But it has been held that knowledge has been achieved or might be achieved in certain sciences: in ethics (according to some), or in metaphysics, or in physics or in mathematics.
A Philosopher's Reaction to Intelligence Tests
Authors: Mays W.
Published: February 2009

I DO not have to apologize for entering upon a discussion of intelligence and intelligence tests; it is a field which comes within the purview of philosophy as well as psychology. Any method of testing intelligence is therefore of common interest, especially as the methodology employed is usually based upon some definite theory as to its nature. The very word intelligence covers a wide range of meanings and psychologists seem to select sections of this range at will in accordance with their particular interest. It may include most of the behavioural activities of man, or be narrowed down so that it refers to certain quantitative or relational aspects of experience. To take the case of the factor analyst, after his concept of intelligence has been analysed and classified into g's and s's, it becomes not a description of the mind, but rather a closed cognitive model of it.
Necessary Being And Some Types Of Tautology
Authors: Hutchings P. Æ.
Published: February 2009

Critics of the notion of Necessary Being, and critics of arguments for the existence of God, have often claimed to find flaws in the notion or the arguments, and to find flaws that are due to the presence of concealed tautologies. No theist who recalls the unfortunate ‘proof’ of St Anselm and its rejection by St Thomas would dare to claim, his hand on his heart, that tautology has never lurked like a serpent in the garden of natural theology. But the ways in which tautology and talk about God come together on occasion may or may not undermine natural theology in general. I for one am loath to abandon arguments for the existence of God, or give up talk of Necessary Being, since, unlike Professor Findlay, I am unwilling to reverence, much less to worship, a focus imaginarius and I want a real God, or none at all. One of the questions is, of course: does the religious believer want a God who must be too real to be real at all? Another question is: if one can sensibly talk of a God so real as to be Necessary, are there grounds for saying that this possible Necessary Being exists? Between them these questions cover a great part, though by no means all, of the ground of modern discussions on the matter of God.