We can generate a puzzle concerning identity by combining two plausible assumptions and one strong temptation. I shall consider these in order.

The first assumption is often ignored, at least by implication, but it is something which seems obviously to be the case, namely, that we human beings are animals—comparatively complex animals by the standards that hold for our planet, perhaps, but animals nonetheless. For such animals the conditions for individuation are no more complex than they are for any other animal, or, at least, for any other mammal. There are problems, of a sort, for Siamese twins, real or conceptual, and there may be individuation problems of one kind or another kind for various animals, including humans, during the reproductive cycle, as well as classification problems concerning what John Locke wanted to teach us all not to consider monsters. Still, by and large, the question is a simple one. Animals are born and they die, and, in general, there is not too much theoretical puzzlement over their world lines. Between any given birth and its corresponding death there is precisely one such line. Thus, I shall take our animality for granted. I do not know if the puzzle I pose would still arise on other accounts or not. As there are no coherent alternative accounts around, the question is a fairly academic one.

People intend to do things, try to do things, and do things. Do they also will to do things? More precisely, if people will to do things and their willing bears upon what they do, is willing, or volition, something distinct from intending and trying? This question is central to the intention/volition debate, a debate about the ingredients of the best theory of the nature and explanation of human action. A variety of competing conceptions of volition, intention, and trying have been advanced in the literature; it would be impossible to examine each thoroughly in a single paper. We can show, however, that the major functional roles ascribed to volition are nicely filled by a triad composed of intention, trying, and information feedback. Sections I and II below develop an account of the connection between intention and trying. Section III examines leading arguments for the existence of volitions and decomposes volitions into members of the triad just identified.

In 1968, Nelson Goodman published his Languages of Art which became one of the most important works on aesthetics in the tradition of analytical philosophy. Goodman offered there a semiotic theory of art, the purpose of which was to explicate our concept of art in terms of different symbolic or referential functions; the theory was further developed in his subsequent book Ways of Worldmaking. Though it is a very subtle and sophisticated theory, I will argue that it is not adequate, that it doesn't even satisfy Goodman's own requirements for a theory of art. Traditionally, the aim of a theory of art has been to capture the essence of art, to describe what is common to all works of art and at the same time distinguishes them from everything else. As a nominalist, Goodman does not, however, believe that there is any essence of art that we can discover.

This is a sketch of an ethical system designed to please those who ask for no more than mild constraints on the principle of utility. The system does not grant absolute rights, or the sort of constraints which enshrine absolute respect for persons, freedom, equality, or autonomy. Instead, it speaks to those consequentialist moralists for whom the need for such constraints arises only when their absence is capable of producing monstrous results: those which are not merely unfair, but which involve great misery, so that the few suffer horribly for slight benefit to the many. (Such moralists are unconcerned, for example, about great inequalities among very rich and happy people.) So far, no modification of the principle of utility itself has dealt successfully with all such cases, partly because it seems arbitrary to pick some point past which people's utility should not be lowered for small benefit to others.