In this paper, I engage with the works of Richard Bodéüs about Aristotle’s understanding of the relationship between law, virtue, and education. I argue that there is an important difference between the demands of the law and those of reason, especially in the defective, but more common, regimes. This difference is also found in the best regime possible for most cities, the mixed regime Aristotle calls ‘polity’ (or, in Greek, politeia), insofar as it represents a balance between oligarchy and democracy. To educate citizens in this regime requires what Aristotle calls “political philosophy.”

An Old and continuing tendency amongst critics of Kant's thought on ethics has been to maintain that since the categorical imperative merely provides a formal condition for the rightness of actions – that the principle of the action be universalizable without contradiction – it is inadequate as a test for the rightness of actions. Such critics as Hegel, Mill, and recently, R.P. Wolff, have suggested the same fundamental objection to Kant's doctrine: the requirement that a maxim be universalizable is formally compatible with any action whatsoever being right.

In Book I of the Treatise of Human Nature, Hume examines the idea of necessary connection, which, he observes, forms an indispensable part of our idea of cause and effect. He concludes:

The idea of necessity arises from some impression. There is no impression convey'd by our senses, which can give rise to that idea. It must, therefore, by deriv'd from some internal impression, or impression of reflexion. There is no internal impression which has any relation to the present business, but that propensity, which custom produces, to pass from an object to the idea of its usual attendant. This therefore is the essence of necessity. Upon the whole, necessity is something, that exists in the mind, not in objects; nor is it possible for us ever to form the most distant idea of it, consider'd as a quality in bodies. Either we have no idea of necessity, or necessity is nothing but that determination of the thought to pass from causes to effects and from effects to causes, according to their experienced union.

To formulate a philosophy of time is not easy, even though it would seem to be the basic requirement for any philosophy which attempts to comprehend the world of nature or of history. The problem is briefly posed: Can the conceptual framework of philosophical thought do justice to the dynamic character of time?

The purpose of this paper is not to provide a definitive answer to this question. Its aim is more limited. By discussing carefully the way in which Hegel's philosophy related conceptual thought to time, it hopes to provide new perspectives on this vexing philosophical problem.

ABSTRACT: Critics have charged that there are gaps in the logic of Kant’s derivation of the formula of universal law. Here I defend that derivation against these charges, partly by emphasizing a neglected teleological principle that Kant alluded to in his argument, and partly by clarifying what he meant by actions’ “conformity to universal law.” He meant that actions conform to universal law just when their maxims can belong to a unified system of principles. An analogy with objects’ conformity to universal law in nature helps show how Kant was correct in deriving the formula of universal law from the premises of his argument.

In a recent issue of Dialogue, John O. Nelson corrects what appears to be an inexplicable error in the Haldane-Ross edition of Descartes' Meditations. At a “very crucial place,” he tells us, the translation “fails to do justice to Descartes' text.”

Dans les études consacrées aux écrits politiques et éducatifs de Rousseau, on a beaucoup insisté sur la loi qui commande son anthropologie, à savoir que l'altérité corrompt. Cependant, on a moins insisté sur une notion fondamentale de cette anthropologie, celle des bornes et des places, ce qui explique un certain nombre de malentendus quant au caractère plus ou moins pessimiste ou conser vateur des écrits de Rousseau. Pourtant, un lien existe entre la loi de l'altérité et le concept des bornes, car ne corrompt chez Rousseau que le type de comparaisons qui refusent l'ordre d'un tout et qui, de ce fait, situent l'individualité et l'altérité en dehors de leurs bornes.

In the first part of this paper I will outline a feature of Wittgenstein's later views which has not to my knowledge been much noticed. In the second part I will suggest some light that it casts on two main Wittgensteinian themes. In the third part I will offer some critical ruminations.

When we discuss Kant's views on immortality we are walking in the by-ways of Kantian exegesis. Kant's views on immortality are interesting in themselves, but even within the Kantian framework, they do not affect other topics of importance. It is true that Kant felt that the possibility of immortality was necessary for certain moral manoeuvres to be possible, but he thought that the existence of God was even more essential, so that particular battle is lost regardless. On the other hand, some at least of Kant's views are shared by other people, and if he is wrong, not just over points of detail, but in a thoroughgoing way, that might be worth pointing out, and notjust as a matter of exegesis. And, I shall try to show, Kant is not only wrong, but necessarily wrong. Not only is his version of immortality impossible, but any version resembling his is also impossible. I shall discuss the topic under three main headings: first, I shall mention the views which led Kant to his doctrine of immortality; secondly, I shall try to bring out some of the important points which his doctrine involves; and, finally, I shall indulge briefly in what I hope will be the - by then - fairly superfluous task of showing why such a doctrine won't, after all do.

God, by definition, is all-powerful, all-good, all-wise, and all-knowing. Therein lies a problem for the theist, of course, for every one of these attributes has been the subject of fierce debate. In this paper I want to return to the debate by introducing a new problem for the idea that anyone could have the kind of perfect knowledge God is supposed to have. What distinguishes my problem from others is that the sort of knowledge it focuses on is self-knowledge, hence knowledge of a particularly intimate kind. My claim is that God cannot have infallible knowledge of at least some of his own perfections, in particular his being all-wise or ideally rational. Such ignorance is not only inconsistent with the usual conception of God's omniscience, given that whatever knowledge God possesses is traditionally thought to be be a priori and infallible, but, more importantly, is inconsistent with the fundamental idea that God at least knows infallibly or incorrigibly that he has what it takes to be God: qualities such as omnibenevolence, omnipotence, and supreme wisdom. In short, my claim is that God must have a deep “blindspot” about his own nature, something which is inconsistent with a traditional picture of that nature.