Much of recent moral philosophy has been concerned with the relation between individual rationality and individual obligation. Familiar gametheoretic analyses, in particular the Prisoner's Dilemma, at least suggest that unconstrained pursuit of rational self-interest leads to collective ill. The difficulty is nicely illustrated by comparing the preference-orderings of distinct individuals over the possible outcomes of their actions to their collective preference-ordering. Consider the following typical version of the Prisoner's Dilemma, where R2 and C2 represent respectively “R has confessed to the crime” and “C has confessed to the crime,” and Rl and Cl correspond to “It is not the case that R has confessed” and “It is not the case that C has confessed.”

It is often either assumed or argued that political liberalism respects rights, while Marxism does not. In fact, many believe that the omission of rights in communism counts decisively against the viability of Karl Marx's social philosophy. Is there room for rights in Marx's social philosophy?

This paper examines Allen E. Buchanan's interpretation of Marx's critique of rights. Contrary to Buchanan's view, I shall argue that Marx's critique of rights is limited rather than comprehensive in scope. I shall also set forth part of a foundation of a Marxian theory of rights.

En 1888, à l'heure où s'avançaient les ténèbres de la folie, Nietzsche (1844–1900), dans Ecce homo, lançait: «Je ne suis pas un homme, je suis de la dynamite». Jetant un ultime regard sur son œuvre, il en rappelait fiévreusement, depuis les Considérations inactuelles, la facture «absolument combative». Ses premiers écrits furent, disait-il alors, «quatre attentats» dans lesquels il prit plaisir à «tirer l'épée». Au milieu des affres des plus cruelles douleurs, la révolte et le combat ne l'ont jamais quitté: il aimait, confie-t-il, à «faire table rase». Il était contre Dieu, contre l'homme, contre la métaphysique, contre l'histoire, contre tout. Ainsi ouvrait-il le procès de la civilisation d'Occident, un procès destiné à renverser et à briser les tables des valeurs auxquelles se référait la longue tradition de l'humanité. Bref, il déclara une guerre sans merci à une modernité qui, pensait-il, durait depuis vingt-cinq siècles.

Wittgenstein claims that I cannot name or classify my completely private sensations. If there are to be words for things, there must be standards for when the words apply to things. But (apparently) I cannot set up such standards all by myself for my completely private sensations. Consequently, no use of this sign “S” is ever correct or incorrect, and hence error involving the sign is impossible.

On sait qu'au debut de sa carriére, Occam a admis, comme une hypothése au moins probable, qu'en plus des choses réelles, toutes singuliéres, il y a de purs objets généraux d'intellection, dépourvus de tout être réel, qu'il appelle des «ficta». Les ficta étant posés, il leur identifiera à la fois les universaux et les concepts. Mais on sait aussi que c'est là une hypothése qu'aprés une période d'hésitation, il finira par abandonner. Ne pouvant désormais recourir aux ficta, il choisira d'identifier les concepts à des actes d'intellection et les universaux aux concepts généraux.

La correspondance latine échangée entre Leibniz et Tun de ses maîtres, Jacob Thomasius (1622–1684), professeur de philosophie morale, puis de dialectique et d'éloquence à l'Université de Leipzig, figure dans l'Akademie-Ausgabe des œuvres de Leibniz. Richard Bodéüs nous en donne ici la premiére traduction intégrate en français, assortie d'analyses: celles-ci figurent dans I'introduction, dans les notes qui accompagnent le texte, et dans les commentaires qui suivent chaque piéce de la correspondance.

R. C. Sleigh's Leibniz and Arnauld: A Commentary on Their Correspondence is a very good book: it is detailed, clearly written, well argued and attentive to the historical background. The more I read it, the more I enjoyed it and the more I learned. Not only does it offer a wide variety of interesting points for the reader to agree and disagree with, it has, also, the virtue of pretty well forcing the reader to think about the issues involved and their connection with a variety of other philosophical problems. It breaks a good deal of new ground and, as is the way with new ground-breaking, it sometimes (explicitly) only scratches the surface: it points out both the need for further, more detailed investigations and the way in which such investigations might fruitfully proceed. By and large, however, it does a great deal more than scratch the surface: its depth of discussion is such that only a comparably sized book could hope to discuss in all their ramifications the problems raised (and often solved) by Sleigh.

This book is a collection of 12 essays, divided into five parts, entitled respectively, “Foundationalism,” “The Nature of Epistemic Justification,” Internalism and Externalism,” “Self Knowledge” and “The Foundations of Epistemology.” These parts are preceded by a good Introduction which not only serves as an effective summary of the main theses developed in the papers but also amplifies and corrects those theses.