Winston Churchill was once described as a pillar of the Church. ‘No, no,’ he replied, ‘not a pillar of the Church, but a buttress, supporting it from the outside.’

Presumably being a buttress in the Churchillian sense did not mean being physically or institutionally on the outside; it seems more like a less totalitarian state of the internal exile lived by the dissident in the eastern bloc. It is a happier state? Not necessarily, one surmises, if one is surrounded by fundamentalist pillars, hectoring in their certainty and demanding in their professions of loyalty.

We are told that the world is full of fundamentalists, from Teheran and Peshawar, from Bagdad and Bradford to Houston and Colorado Springs, not forgetting the fundamentalists of science and its ‘public understanding’. Can this really be so? Are the pillars of faith really so sure of their facts, really so confident in their improbable dogmas? Are there really the million upon million of them claimed? Or, in les hommes moyen sensuels at least, in those whose character demands a degree of philosophical reflection, are there occasional seeds of doubt beneath the public displays?

It would be strange if this were not so, because even with those most certain of themselves thought has a tiresome habit of occasionally breaking in. Moreover, what the fundamentalists of to-day believe bears scant relation to what the believers of the early eras of their faiths believed. Fundamentalism, despite its appearance of permanence, is a changing and, arguably, a modern phenomenon, a response to the threats of scientific enlightenment and Western empire. Over the ages religions have survived as much because of the buttresses, holding the structures up while the pillars and interiors are changed, as because of the pillars which have only the appearance of immutability, and only over the short term.

For those in our day who believe that there may be much to be gained by fostering the spirit and practice which underlay the works of two great civilisations in very different circumstances, being a Churchillian buttress may be an honourable position.

It was news verging on sensational when A. J. Ayer came back from four minutes of heart death with a report of what he saw. Especially since the philosopher, who publicized his near-death experience [NDE] in 1988, in the Telegraph and the Spectator, was known for his lifelong rejection of religion and the supernatural. But, as will be seen, Ayer's beliefs on that head were substantially unchanged, if more ambivalently expressed, and the interest of his NDE lies elsewhere— in what it reveals about his philosophy.

This essay assesses the opposition of pluralism and monism with respect to politics and architecture, developing the argument within three general areas: the spurious association between political intentions and architectural character, the distinctions and commonalties between political freedom and artistic freedom, and the adverse effect of inappropriate associations between political content and artistic form in general and, in particular, the perceptual impairment of the processes by which buildings come to be endowed with their suitable character.

This paper is a critical examination of the so-called slippery slope argument for the conservative position on abortion. The argument was discussed in the philosophic literature some time back, but has since fallen into disfavor.

The argument is first exposed and a general objection to it is advanced, then rebutted. Rosalind Hursthouse's more detailed and stronger objection is next aired, but also found less than convincing. In the course of discussing her objection, the correct form of the argument is identified, and it's noted that rejection of the argument requires finding fault with its inductive premise. That, in turn, requires either (a) identifying and defending a cutoff point other than conception, or (b) not identifying a cutoff point but directly attacking the argument's conclusion. As far as (a) is concerned, all except one alternative cutoff point have severe problems that have been well discussed in the literature. The one that doesn't, the appearance of the ‘primitive streak’, is examined in detailed, but ultimately rejected. As for (b), five different grounds for rejecting the conclusion are identified and discussed, but none is found plausible.

Variations on the slippery slope argument, concerning different conclusions that it may have, are then distinguished, related to each other, and critically discussed, and the paper ends with some cautionary remarks about the defense of the argument tendered.

Explanations of descriptions of events are undivided, holistic, units of analysis for the purpose of justification. Their justifications are based on the transmission of information about the past and its interpretation and analysis. Further analysis of explanations of descriptions of events is redundant. The “holistic” model of explanations fits better the actual practices of scientists, historians and ordinary people who utter explanatory propositions than competing models. I consider the “inference to the best explanation” model and argue that under one interpretation, it cannot account for all the paradigmatic cases of explanation of description of events that I present, though under another interpretation it fits comfortably with my holistic model. Finally, I argue that there is nothing intrinsic or structural to distinguish holistic explanations of descriptions of events from other hypothetical propositions because the pragmatic context of inquiry may well determine exclusively whether a proposition is considered explanatory.

Russell's Principle states that in order to think about an object I must know which thing it is, in the sense of being able to distinguish it from all other things. I show that, contra Strawson, Evans and Cassam, Russell's Principle cannot be applied to first-person thought so as to yield necessary conditions of self-consciousness.

Certain paradoxes set us reeling endlessly. In surprise examination paradoxes, pupils' reasonings lead them to reel between expecting an examination and expecting none. With Newcomb's puzzle, choosers reel between reasoning in favour of choosing just one box and choosing two. The paradoxes demand an answer to what it is rational to believe or do. Highlighting other reelings and puzzles, this paper shows that the paradoxes should come as no surprise. The paradoxes demand an end to our reasoning when the conditions they set ensure no end. They equivocate between, so to speak, reasoning in heaven and reasoning on earth; and, on the conditions set, not even an infinite god could reach a conclusion.

The Goodman paradox presents us with the problem of selecting the hypotheses that are confirmed by their positive instances. In a recent paper, Stephen Hetherington proposes a criterion that enables us to specify the hypotheses that are subjectively confirmed by these instances. But there is also an objective aspect to be considered here because, as a matter of fact, the hypotheses selected by the criterion have often been highly reliable even if they were based on the observation of only a few positive instances. In the present note, I examine this aspect and I point out that Hume not only dealt with the reliability phenomenon but also gave a plausible explanation of the phenomenon. I also point out that Hume's explanation is surprisingly similar to the explanation given lately by a number of naturalistic philosophers to the reliability phenomenon.