No aspect of Locke's Essay has received more attention than his theory of personal identity. Yet surprisingly little attention has been given to the intellectual context in which it was written. This is particularly noteworthy in that the chapter in which the theory is developed, “Of Identity and Diversity” (II,xxvii), has a history quite independent of the bulk of the Essay. Added only in the second edition (1694), the theory constitutes a rather late chapter in Locke's intellectual biography. In contrast to other major themes of the Essay, such as the origin of our ideas, substance, power, essence, etc., which received their early development in the various drafts of the Essay (the first being dated 1670), Locke's views on personal identity were apparently first formulated in a note in his 1683 journal.

Gregory Kavka has recently highlighted, and attempted resolution of, a possible problem with Hobbes's views on state-of-nature co-operation. The problem, having to do with whether it is rational to abide by one's agreements in what appear to be prisoner's dilemma (PD) or PD-like situations, can provisionally be summarized in this way: A covenant of mutual trust is an agreement in which both parties are required to discharge their covenantal obligation, in sequence, at some time after the contract is made (WM,3,14,120–121,124). Hobbes seems to affirm that it is not rational in the state of nature for covenant-parties who have to perform first—first-parties—to keep their agreements, although it is rational for second-parties to do so if first-parties have already performed. These views on the rationality of contract-keeping generate the symmetry enigma: precisely what is the asymmetry between the situations of first-parties and second-parties in the state of nature that makes it irrational for first-parties to do the cooperative thing but rational for second-parties to do so?

Recently, Brian Ellis came up with a neat and novel idea about laws of nature, which at first I misunderstood. Then I participated, with Brian Ellis and Caroline Lierse, in writing a joint paper, “The World as One of a Kind: Natural Necessity and Laws of Nature” (Ellis, Bigelow and Lierse, forthcoming). In this paper, the Ellis idea was formulated in a different way from that in which I had originally interpreted it. Little weight was placed on possible worlds or individual essences. Much weight rested on natural kinds. I thought Ellis to be suggesting that laws of nature attribute essential properties to one grand individual, The World. In fact, Ellis is hostile towards individual essences for any individuals at all, including The World. He is comfortable only with essential properties of kinds, rather than individuals. The Ellis conjecture was that laws of nature attribute essential properties to the natural kind of which the actual world is one (and presumably the only) member.

Les représentants de l'École autrichienne sont ici mis sous la même bannière pour autant seulement qu'ils ont été unanimes à revendiquer pour les postulats de l'économie pure, les «lois exactes» (Menger) de la théorie économique, c'est-à-dire de la théorie marginale de l'utilité, un statut particulier en ce sens qu'ils tenaient pour impossible, voire absurde ou simplement inutile de soumettre les postulats en cause à des tests empiriques. L'apriorisme dont ils se réclament, fait à juste titre la marque de commerce de l'École marginaliste autrichienne; Menger en a fourni les principes, von Mises la justification, et Rothbard s'est occupé de propager la doctrine de l'autre côté de l'Atlantique.

En parlant des rapports entre la Nouvelle Rhétorique et la France, Pierre-André Taguieff décrivait la situation comme celle d'un rendez-vous manqué. En parlant des rapports entre la philosophie pérelmanienne et la philosophie anglo-saxonne, il faut surtout parler de rendez-vous clandestins. Car dans l'ensemble, ces rendez-vous divers sont d'autant plus évidents (en termes pérelmaniens, interrogeables) qu'ils témoignent sans doute de l'influence réelle d'une philosophie. D'une philosophie dont on retrouve, dans le milieu anglo-saxon, un «air de famille» mais sans que Chaïm Perelman ne soit expressément nommé.

Can a moral principle be tested and confirmed empirically? Can the fact that an event exhibits a moral quality play a role in explaining why a person observes the event as having that quality? Gilbert Harman, in attempting to point to a radical difference between scientific and moral facts, has endorsed a negative answer to these questions. With Harman's discussion in mind, Nicholas Sturgeon takes the affirmative side in his “Moral Explanations,” a potentially influential essay that is now beginning to appear in the textbook anthologies. Sturgeon rounds out his defence of moral realism by further arguing that moral qualities of persons can play an essential role in the scientific explanation of human conduct. Finally, he attempts to enhance the appeal of moral realism by arguing for the plausibility of its compatibility with physicalism. While granting that Sturgeon's discussion is challenging and instructive I shall try to show that on all points mentioned here Sturgeon has failed to make a good case.

Unwarranted antagonism between reason and the passions is an ancient problem, dating back at least to Plato. Even philosophers who sought to give the passions their due—David Hume for example—juxtaposed reason and emotion and contrasted them as slave and master (or vice versa). The point of a so-called “cognitive” theory of emotion, simply stated, is to deny this antagonism. The most succinct (if not very informative) statement of the cognitivist view is Nietzsche's: “as if every passion did not possess its quantum of reason.” Hume's own theory anticipated such a synthesis (in his awkward analysis of “ideas” as both necessary causes and effects of emotions) while Spinoza and Hobbes clearly defended cognitive theories with the wisdom of reconciliation in mind. The aim of a cognitive theory is not to reduce volatile emotion to cool and calm belief, nor is the emphasis on emotion a romantic attempt to extol the passions and excoriate reason—though that exercise may have its place in philosophy too; it is rather to understand reason and the passions together and appreciate their shared properties, similarities and complementarity as well as their obvious differences and oppositions. So understood, cognitive theories have, generically, gained widespread acceptance; only a few reactionaries in philosophy and psychology still insist on a cognition-free concept of emotion, however backhandedly cognitive concepts might be acknowledged as presuppositions, causal preconditions or criteria for the appropriate labelling of emotion rather than as proper constituents of emotion.

In 1959, an article in the Harvard Business Review asked “Can Capitalism Win the Intellectuals?” Thirty years later, affirmative answers are prominent. Economic stagnation and downright collapse in the planned economies of Eastern Europe, coupled with the seeming inability of the deficit-ridden welfare states of the West to maintain social services provide at least part of the explanation. But philosophers have been eager to show that this is more than an historical trend.

One reason for professing sympathy for such an unpopular view as libertarianism is that one acquires such worthy opponents. Arthur Ripstein's notice was a pleasure to read and, as I would expect, gives one plenty to think about. In this very brief reply, though, I can only identify some points on which I think he may have misstated my view, or on which I can offer a quick rebuttal.