La révolution scientifique ou copernicienne apparait habituellement au penseur comme un événement imposant, complexe et problématique. Mais ce ne semble pas être le cas pour M. Raymond Montpetit. Vous n'avez, selon lui, qu'è y appliquer un regard dialectique on psychanalytique et le tour est joué. C'est ce que je retiens de l'allure et du biais de sa discussion de mon article sur la révolution en question.

On most views of the nature of moral judgments, it is possible for a person to be mistaken in the belief that it is right to act in a certain way. When someone believes that it is right to do something, does that thing on the basis of such a belief, and yet in so doing commits deeds which are wrong by moral standards other than his own, we do not quite know whether to praise him for his conscientiousness while condemning his actions. He acts according to his conscience and does what he believes to be right, but his beliefs are erroneous and his actions wrong. Shall we praise the man for his conscientiousness while condemning his actions ?

Le trait sémantique le plus distinctif du discours au sujet des êtres fictifs consiste peut-être dans le fait que nous évaluons celui-ci d'une façon contradictoire. Il est évident que nous sommes disposés à rejeter la phrase «Sherlock Holmes lived on Berczy Street» en faveur de «Sherlock Holmes lived on Baker Street» mais, néanmoins, nous considérons cette dernière phrase comme fausse; et un recensement complet de l'époque montrerait que nous avons tout à fait raison.

In a recent article published in this journal, Charles Ripley argues that determinism cannot be true because it is self-defeating. According to Ripley, the determinist “holds determinism to be objectively true and supports his claim by appealing to justifying reasons” but unfortunately “it is a logical consequence of determinism that appeals to justifying reasons and also the very concept of objective truth must be abandoned.” On this view, if determinism is true, there can be neither true nor justified belief, or if there can be such things, we can never know when we have them.

J'aborde, ici, une question que personne, à ma connaissance, n'a soulevée sous cette forme en lisant Aristote et, en même temps, le commentaire d'un passage qui, toujours à ma connaissance, n'a reçu l'attention qu'il mérite chez aucun interprète.

Deux remarques préliminaires s'imposent, afin de préciser mon propos.

Nowhere in philosophy is there a more persistent kind of nuisance statement than the singular negative existential. Examples of this sort of statement are the descriptional statement

(1) The teacher at Sleepy Hollow doesn't exist,

and the referential statement

(2) Ichabod Crane doesn't exist.

Statements denying existence to a specific object have bothered philosophers from Parmenides to Ryle and Quine. Their high nuisance value rests in a simple paradox they generate. The paradox may be phrased as follows.

The modern self, with its inwardness, its freedom and its individuality (p. ix), suffers, Taylor tells us, from disenchantment (p. 500, cf. pp. 17-18, 186). Moreover, disenchantment has come in spite of the advance, to which Taylor wishes to give full credit, that modernity has made in giving great value to ordinary life at work and in the family (p. 211). For religion, though still present as one layer of sentiment among many in the historical deposits that compose modern culture, has given ground to “disengaged instrumentalism” or to its antagonist, romantic “expressivism” (p. 498). Taylor, a philosopher of uncommonly generous spirit, is willing to find good in each of these orientations: the first, for example, has with utilitarianism put the relief of needless suffering at the top of the moral agenda (p. 331), along with redeeming from superstitious repression a number of innocent pleasures; the second has deepened human capacity, on the one hand by deepening emotions (both in the sense of oneself and in concern for others), on the other hand by gaining for them intellectual respect (pp. 294, 372, 419).

Eric Weil commence sa philosophic par l'opposition abrupte Philosophic et Violence; le chapitre XVI de sa Logique de la Philosophie (1950) — l'action — qui englobe en fait sa Philosophie morale (1961) et sa Philosophie politique (1956), renoue au premier paragraphe avec son début; raison et violence. C'est dire du même coup que cette antithèse constitue le fil conducteur de l'ceuvre de Weil dont l'ampleur, la puissance et la rigueur en font l'une des æuvres maîtresses de la philosophie contemporaine. Aborder ce thème ici ne peut done signifier qu'une trop brève introduction: la pensée de Weil défie le résumé. Aussi nous contenterons-nous de ressaisir la logique interne de son point de départ; nous esquisserons ensuite son rapport à la finitude de l'homme.

Michel Foucault disait de ses propres travaux qu'ils avaient été des essais aveugles (Archéologie du savoir, 26) qui ne s'éclairaient qu'en cours de route, au fur et à mesure que se précisait la méthode d'analyse historique qui y était appliquée. Us ont été reçus comme oeuvres d'his-torien. Cet accueil laissait cependant l'inconfortable impression que Foucault envahissait le champ de l'histoire en se comportant en his-torien cannibale, en dissolvant de son regard de sauvage les évidences incontestées et en résolvant avec facilité les problèmes sur lesquels les spécialistes se cassaient les dents. Cela lui a valu une réception controversée. Foucault eut, en effet, maille à partir non seulement avec les historiens, mais aussi avec les spécialistes des disciplines auxquelles il s'intéressait. De plus, chaque fois qu'on lui demandait de définir le “point d'où il soulevait la terre épistémique ”, de circonscrire l'espace blanc où il s'installe quand il fait ses enquêtes et fabrique les histoires sur l a folie, sur la maladie et la naissance de la clinique, sur l'apparition des sciences de la vie, du langage et de l'économie, sur la naissance de la prison et sur l'usage des plaisirs des grecs au dix-neuvième siècle, Foucault répondait en véritable anarchiste qu'il n'était ni ceci, ni cela, qu'il était plutôt contre toutes ces étiquettes que l'on essayait de lui coller.

The Republic contains: (1) an implicit argument that slavery is unjust, (2) a bar against Greeks having Greek slaves that (3) allows barbarian slaves. The scholarship has failed to notice the first, that the second is a performative addressed to Greeks, and mistakes the third as explicit. Four passages are examined: (1) a catalogue of a Greek city’s social classes (433d1–5); (2) a bar against Greek slaves, asserting the continuation of barbarian slavery (469b5–71c3); (3) an assertion that the Best City can exist at any time and any place (499c7–d1); and (4) a passage asserting the injustice of enslavement (615a6–b6).

Errol Harris talks about a crypto-dialectic method that lies behind the geometrical disguise of Spinoza's Ethics. Spinoza's method, he argues, is not the linear formal deduction of traditional logic but a crypto-dialectical development of the structural implications of a systematic whole. Substance differentiates itself into infinite attributes and infinite modes. Each attribute is self-differentiated into a hierarchy of modes ranging from the most complex to the simplest. Harris calls this a dialectical scale or a crypto-dialectical development of the structural implications of a systematic whole. The self-specification of the whole into attributes and modes provides the framework for a dialectical system. Spinoza's hypotheses (propositions) are implications dialectically derived from his concept of substance, a concept of a whole which differentiates itself into infinite attributes and modes. Substance is not a hypothesis but is a postulate which s i absolutely certain. Everything follows from substance with dialectical necessity. Substance is the origin of all things and ideas.

TIT FOR TAT (TFT) is the familiar strategy of returning like for like, good for good, bad for bad. Recently Robert Axelrod has shown this rule to be remarkably effective in promoting co-operation among egoists.1Nevertheless, it has been morally denigrated, most notably in the Sermon on the Mount but also by the modern patron of TFT, Anatol Rapoport:

Of the contingent strategies, Tit-for-tat elicits consistently the most cooperation in the Prisoner's Dilemma. Obviously, it would be fatuous to interpret this result as a vindication of the “eye-for-an-eye” principle. The success of Tit-for-tat may be no more than that of a simple reinforcement schedule in à two-choice situation, devoid of ethical overtones.

This paper intends to focus on Condorcet's approach to the Principle of Equality. Condorcet, in effect, strenuously strives to counter the risks of equalitarianism, such as élitism. According to him, it is in the interest of the Republic and of public instruction to favour the diversity of talents and the spreading of enlightenment, since, in the end, it will benefit all citizens.

Berkeley in his Introduction to the Principles of Human knowledge uses geometrical examples to illustrate a way of generating “universal ideas,” which allegedly account for the existence of general terms. In doing proofs we might, for example, selectively attend to the triangular shape of a diagram. Presumably what we prove using just that property applies to all triangles.

I contend, rather, that given Berkeley’s view of extension, no Euclidean triangles exist to attend to. Rather proof, as Berkeley would normally assume, requires idealizing diagrams; treating them as if they obeyed Euclidean constraints. This convention solves the problem of representative generalization.

I ask whether we need African Canadian philosophy and attempt to provide an answer by considering a series of other questions that can be understood as alternative versions of the initial question. I ask (1) whether we need African Canadian philosophers; (2) whether we need philosophy focused on the African Canadian experience; (3) whether we already have African Canadian philosophy; (4) whether anybody of any background can do African Canadian philosophy; and (5) what African Canadian philosophy will do for us. I conclude that we do need African Canadian philosophy.