One of the things for which Kierkegaard is both best known to English and American philosophers and most criticized by them, is his contention that “truth is subjectivity.” His discussion of “truth” and “subjectivity” occupies a considerable part of his most important philosophical work, Concluding Unscientific Postscript; and his contention that “truth is subjectivity” is the pivotal claim around which virtually the entire work revolves. Yet few of Kierkegaard's claims have been more frequently misunderstood; and a misunderstanding of this claim has led many philosophers wrongly to dismiss him as unworthy of serious consideration.

I want to consider some difficulties which I have on rereading the passages on “common properties” or “common features” and “family resemblances” in The Blue Book (p. 17) and in Philosophical Investigations (§65 - §71 ). These passages are not as easy to read as they once were. Wittgenstein tells us that we think, or have a tendency to think, that all the things to which we apply a general word have some property or feature in common, and he tells us that we believe it is because of this common property or feature that we apply the same word to them. In The Blue Book the phrase is “common property”; in Philosophical Investigations it is “common feature.” Wittgenstein may have changed from the word “property” to the word “feature” because the word “property” is obviously too limited in its application. We speak of the properties of mercury or neoprene but not of the properties of barnowls or slatterns. The word “feature” also seems too limited in a way, but he may have chosen this word mainly because it fits his metaphor of family resemblances. I do not think that Wittgenstein wants to impose any special restriction at this point, so I shall use the word “feature” only where it is appropriate, and I shall use the less limiting word “characteristic” where it seems more appropriate than the word “feature.” Thus I assume that Wittgenstein means to examine our tendency to think that a general word is applied to things because those things have some features or features, characteristic or characteristics in common.

Utilitarianism claims to be a rational moral theory in at least three ways. First, it claims to give us an objective standard of morality, a way of deciding moral issues, not in the light of what each of us happens to like or dislike, but on publicly verifiable grounds. Secondly, by offering only one criterion of morality it assures consistency. If we accept a system which invokes two or more independent principles, there is always the possibility of insoluble conflict. For example, if we take our stand on the Ten Commandments, we cannot, without divine revelation, be sure that we shall not one day find ourselves in a situation in which we must break one or other of them; and our system gives us no guide as to which we ought to break.

At the beginning of Book X of his last work The Laws Plato turns his attention from violent and outrageous actions in general to the particular case of undisciplined and presumptuous behaviour in matters of religion: “We have already stated summarily what the punishment should be for temple-robbing, whether by open force or secretly. But the punishments for the various sorts of insolence in speech or action with regard to the gods, which a man can show in word or deed, have to be proclaimed after we have provided an exordium. Let this be it: ‘No one believing, as the laws prescribe, in the existence of the gods has ever yet performed an impious action willingly, or uttered a lawless word. Anyone acting in such a way is in one of three conditions: either, first, he does not believe the proposition aforesaid; or, second, he believes that though the gods exist they have no concern about men; or, third, he believes that they can easily be won over by the bribery of prayer and sacrifice” (§ 885B).

Dans ses “Leçons sur l'histoire de Ia Philosophie”, Hegel formule à plusieurs reprises l'antinomie cachée derrière I'expression “Histoire de Ia philosophie”. Parmi ces formulations l'une des plus claires et des plus suggestives est Ia suivante: “L'idée qui peut tout d'abord se présenter à nous à propos d'une histoire de Ia philosophie c'est que cet objet renferme une contradiction intrinsèque. Car Ia philosophie se propose de connaître l'immuable, l'éternel, ce qui est en soi et pour soi; sa fin est Ia vérité. Mais l'histoire raconte ce qui a été à une époque mais qui a disparu à une autre, écarté par autre chose. Si nous partons de Ià que Ia vérité est éternelle, elle n'entre pas dans Ia sphére de ce qui passe et n'a pas d'histoire.

There was a duel at dawn between A and B. A shot B, who lingered on until dusk of that day, and then died of his bulletwound. Certain background conditions are satisfied (it doesn't matter now what they are) which make it right to say not just that A caused B's death but that he killed him. So, A shot B and killed him. This seems to be structurally different from "A shot B and he kicked him," but what is this structural difference? How does the shooting relate to the killing?

Rightly or, wrongly I am going to take it that the doctrine of simple qualities says three things. First, that yellow, for example, is a simple unanalyzable quality. I don’t really believe this to be true, except in what it denies, but I have no immediate quarrel with it. Second, a simple quality, such as yellow, is what it is quite independently of its pattern of exemplification. Third, yellow is somehow ineffable, the sheer dazzling yellowishness of yellow things cannot be conveyed in words. In the third case, I do not mean the commonplace that words are different from things, that the word ‘yellow’ is not itself yellow. I mean the view that there is something about color qualities as immediately apprehended by us that eludes description. Now all these views are somewhat old-fashioned. The third is hardly mentioned nowadays. Yet I am not so sure that we are not still very much in their grip. In any case, philosophical hemlil)eS oscillate almost as frequently as do those of high fashion so it should not surprise anyone if these views were to come back into vogue, especially if phenomenology becomes important in this country. Now it may be more a matter of convenience than of historical accuracy that I am lumping these three doctrines together as “the doctrine of simple qualities”. Perhaps “doctrine of atomistic qualities” would be better. I am reasonably certain that the second and third doctrines mutually entail each other, although it has to be conceded that the situation is fairly complicated. I shall have something to say about the third doctrine–the doctrine of ineffability, but I shall be mostly concerned to refute the second doctrine–the doctrine that the identity of a quality is independent of its extension–and to put something else in its place. I shall be concerned incidentally to examine certain puzzling statements like ‘Red is a color’, ‘Red is between orange and purple’ and ‘Whatever is green is extended’, which seem to be necessary but don’t seem to be analytic.

Let us consider Flew’s main contention, that the onus of proof lies on the theist. The “proof” which is required of the theist involves (a) showing that his concept of God is such that the existence of God is theoretically possible and (b) providing sufficient reasons, though not necessarily a demonstration, to warrant believing that God exists. The “onus” which is on the theist does not preclude the possibility of a theistic proof. It is similar to the “onus” which is on the prosecutor in an English court: it is up to the prosecutor to prove guilt, but such proof is possible. And just as the prosecutor does not have to drop his personal conviction—if he has one—that the defendant is guilty, the theist does not have to drop his own theistic belief. What Flew is asking the theist to do is to accept a procedure. Like the affirmative side in a debate, the theist is asked to concede that if he has not provided grounds for what he affirms, he has lost the debate— whether or not the opposition says anything. If a theist moves, “Resolved that this house affirms the existence of God”, the presumption in the debate is atheistic; the theist has to prove his claim or lose the debate. He is like a prosecutor in a court where the procedural rule is that innocence is presumed; the prosecutor must prove guilt or lose his case. Flew holds that the presumption of atheism is a better procedure than the presumption of theism, where the atheist would affirm, “Resolved that this house affirms the non-existence of God”, and the atheist would have to prove his claim or lose the argument.

What is a good man, and how does he become good? My aim in this paper is to unravel and to assess Plato's and St. Paul's very different answers to these questions. The pivotal texts are the Republic and Paul's Epistles.

A good man, according to Plato, is a man who is dikaios (righteous, just), temperate, wise, and courageous. A just man is one each one of the three parts (elements, components) of whose soul is doing its own [work, ergon]. We must pause a moment at the crucial passage in 441 DE. Cornford's translation of it is somewhat ambiguous. “ ... each one of us likewise will be a just person, fulfilling his proper function, only if the several parts of our nature fulfil theirs.” According to this rendition Plato may be construed to be saying that a human being is doing his own work as a just person only if each part of his inner nature (=soul) is doing its own work.

Spinoza’s Ethics must contain some of philosophy’s most baffling statements. All things are animate; the order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things: what would I be committed to in agreeing (or disagreeing) with these doctrines? His austere mode of exposition, sparing of illustrations and discursive explanations, ensures that any answer must be highly speculative.

His weakness for dark sayings seems to have communicated itself to some of his best-known commentators. Of course where a philosopher’s thought is itself opaque one would be unreasonable to expect lucidity in a commentator’s exposition of it. However he has been described as holding puzzling, to my mind unintelligible opinions on subjects concerning which, as far as I can see, his own statements more naturally suggest a much clearer and more comprehensible interpretation. There are problems enough in understanding his thought without adding needlessly to the list. I think there has been such an addition in discussion of his doctrines about the causal relationship between God and finite creatures, and this paper is devoted to suggesting another account of his thought on that topic which combines, I think, the advantages of being more intelligible and a more natural construction to place on his own statements, than the set of opinions generally laid at his door.

Admettons comme hypothèse de travail pour les besoins de la discussion qui va suivre que les jugements moraux ne sont pas fondés sur des valeurs objectives, sur des propriétés naturelles des choses, des actes ou des hommes, ni sur les volontés d'un Etre supréme quelconque; admettons qu'ils relevènt ultimement de decisions individuelles, que chaque homme est sur le plan logique (mais pas nécessairement au plan des faits) libre de décider des principes en vertu desquels il entend guider sa vie. La question qui se pose est la suivante: ces jugements concernant ma propre vie sont-ils logiquement universalisables? Le sont-ils nécessairement? Le sont-ils parfois et à quelles conditions? En d'autres termes, le fait qu'au plan moral je valorise tel type d'action doit-il m'amener à poser que les autres “devraient” également valoriser le même type d'action? La logique du discours moral me permet-elle de poser des valeurs uniquement pour moi-méme?Ou au contraire le jugement (moral): “je devrais agir de telle façon” entraîne-t-il le locuteur à adhérer à cet autre jugement: “X (ou toute personne), dans des circonstances semblables, devrait (moralement) agir de la même façon”?

The interesting and suggestive interpretation offered by A. J, Watt in this journal (pp. 171-89 above) of Spinoza’s account of God’s causality to some extent anticipates the discussion of the topic which I am undertaking in a forthcoming book on Spinoza’s philosophy. To a greater extent it is, of course, anticipated by Stuart Hampshire in his study of Spinoza. I agree with Mr. Watt’s objections to some of the traditional interpretations of Spinoza’s doctrine and I think it is in fact immune from the strictures of some critics who attempt to explain the succession of finite modes in Substance as a product of imaginal thinking, a view which must lead to a paralogism in Spinoza’s thought so gross that he could not have been unaware of it and could not have committed unless he had been. I shall not enter into this part of the discussion, as I have no wish to contest what Mr. Watt has written with respect to it, but shall confine my attention to his own (and incidentally Hampshire’s) interpretation.

The analysis of the concept of knowledge is understandably regarded as central to the development of an adequate philosophical system. And yet, as is also apparent, no proposal of recent date has succeeded in meeting certain well-known objections, counterinstances, anomalies. It is reasonable, therefore, to step back from these would-be direct contributions to review the principal strategies by which the relevant puzzles may be supposed to be managed.

Undoubtedly, it was Roderick Chisholm's recovery and revision of the account of the Theaetetus that encouraged a sustained effort, by various hands, to formulate a definition of knowledge in terms of its necessary and sufficient conditions.

Discussion concerning the meaning and analysis of “punishment” has centered, in large measure, on claims for a logical connection between “punishment” and “guilt.” However, more and more in the literature focus has shifted from guilt as the defining feature of “punishment” to guilt as only one of many constitutive conditions satisfaction of which is necessary for standard cases with allowance made for other correct, though secondary, uses of the term.

There are a number of grounds for criticizing what the state requires of one, and for thinking that one no longer has an obligation to obey it. I will begin by attempting to locate liberalism amongst such grounds. It is useful for this purpose to contrast two headings under which these grounds may fall. Firstly, there are criticisms concerning the content of the requirements of the state. In this case exception is taken to what it is that the law requires quite apart from the process by which it was arrived at. If Jews are legally prevented from practising certain professions, and objection is taken because no state should make laws debarring persons from certain professions on religious grounds, the objection is one of content. Secondly, there are grounds concerning the procedure by which a decision was reached. If it is thought that the British Government ought not to have signed the Treaty of Rome because no referendum was taken on whether the electorate wanted Britain to join, exception is taken to the procedure by which this decision was made. The objection could be made by one who thought that British entry was the best policy. liberalism lays down principles concerning the permissible content of what is required by the state.

An important aspect of Sellars' philosophy is his attempt to explicate the concept of thought on the "model" of the concept of speech. More specifically, Sellars has argued that the intentionality of "inner" episodes or thoughts is to be understood in terms of the "semantical" characteristics of intelligent ("nonparroting") linguistic behavior, and not the other way around as the "classical tradition" had supposed.

To avoid misunderstanding, it is important to realize that Sellars' claim, as he explains, in Aristotelian terminology, is a claim "in the order of conceiving" as contrasted with "the order of being." That is, Sellars accepts, as an integral part of his theory, the classical claim that meaningful speech is the manifestation or overt causal expression of ''inner" thoughts, but argues that our concept of such thoughts is a derivative concept, a concept which, in the order of theoretical reconstruction, is "modelled on," is an analogical extension of, the concept of meaningful linguistic behavior.

Quine and others have put many problems to quantified modal logic. Their purpose is to show the logic to be paradoxical or at least very peculiar. Many of these problems center around the interplay between modality, quantification and identity.