In this article, we will consider how far we might be said to be active in forming our beliefs; in particular, we will ask to what extent we can be said to be free in believing what we want to believe. It is clear that we ought to believe only what is really so, at least in so far as it lies in our power to determine this, but reflection shows that, regrettably, we do not confine our beliefs to what we have evidence for, nor do we always believe in accordance with the evidence we do have. So it is natural to conclude that non-intellectual factors may be at work here; such, at least, was the view of Descartes, who attributed error to the influence of our will in leading us to assent to judgments which go beyond the evidence presented by our infallible intellect. This view has some initial plausibility when we think of cases in which emotional considerations lead people to take up and genuinely believe things they have no evidence for, but it is not a view which has received much support from modern philosophers. So, in Part 1 we will look at criticisms levelled against Descartes' view by J. L. Evans, and in Part 2 we will see how far Descartes can be defended. Our conclusions here will lead us to give in Part 3 a general account of the influence of the will in beliefs. We will suggest that we are always responsible for our explicit beliefs, even though it is not true that we can simply believe what we like. Thus we will reject the idea that a man can consciously know something, and at the same time, by will power, believe the opposite. Belief is not then totally free, but we will argue that people do sometimes form beliefs which go against what they should and could believe, and that this can in a way be put down to the influence of the will. Finally we will consider some of the ways in which it is possible to influence our beliefs by willed acts over a long period of time, though this is not the way that we clami that the will might be said to play a part in every judgment that we make.

Does Leibniz really worst Locke in respect of innate ideas, as is frequently supposed, or does Locke emerge more or less whole from their epistemological dispute? I shall here argue that Leibniz does far less well than we might like to believe and that his substantive proposals, where not entirely innocuous, contain little that would appeal to anyone interested in a modern form of the innateness thesis.

Although his subject matter is far from abstract and his arguments comparatively free from obscurity, Bernard Mandeville has generally been acknowledged a difficult philosopher. It is not hard to see why. First, Mandeville deliberately sets out to generate paradoxes. Secondly, he is not a systematic writer. His views are expounded and developed in a number of works of which The Fable of the Bees is only the best known. Thirdly, and most important, he is not solely a philosopher, but also a satirist. His satire is intertwined with his purely philosophical theories and his style is often highly ironic. Any interpretation of Mandeville must consider his philosophical and his satirical intentions.

In his well known proposition that pleasures differ qualitatively, Mill seems to be arguing three principal points. (1) ‘Mental’ pleasures as a kind are intrinsically ‘more desirable and more valuable’ than ‘bodily pleasures’ (p. 12). (2) This estimation of pleasure, Mill says, is such as to rule out the claim that it ‘should be supposed to depend on quantity alone.’ Indeed, he continued, the ‘superiority in quality’ might be ‘so far outweighing quantity as to render it, in comparison, of small account’ (p. 12). (3) The ‘test of quality and the rule for measuring it against quantity,’ Mill says, is ‘the preference’ of experienced judges (p. 16). ‘[T]he judgment of those who are qualified by knowledge of both, or, if they differ, that of the majority among them, must be admitted as final’ (p. 15).

The concept of ideology plays an important part in contemporary social and political thinking. In many works which raise the question about the relationship between what men think and how their societies operate some mention of ideology is made. Since the variety of thinkers who write about this relationship have a variety of views on the subject, it is not at all surprising that they disagree about just what an ideology is. It might be helpful if we could agree on just one usage, or, failing that, understand why a variety of usages is necessary and understand them.