Je me propose de discuter la question du réalisme du point de vue de la reformulation sémantique qu'en a donnée Michael Dummett. Si l'on accepte au départ avec Dummett que la question du réalisme soit une question sémantique au sens où elle trouverait éventuellement sa résolution dans la forme que devrait prendre une theorie systématique de la signification, et si l'on admet également avec Dummett que c'est la notion de vérité et non celle de référence qui est au coeur de la question du réalisme, la conclusion qui suit, aussi etonnante qu'elle puisse paraître du point de vue de la tradition philosophique, est que le nominalisme est une forme de réalisme dans la mesure où il partagerait avec le réalisme la même conception de la vérité.

In two separate studies, published some four years apart, Robert McRae has argued the provocative thesis that the idea of extension is not to be numbered among the ideas accounted innate by Descartes, but among the adventitious. He has defended this view despite explicit statements to the contrary by Descartes both in the Correspondence and in the second part of the Principles of Philosophy. Against such evidence McRae has urged the overriding importance of the sixth Meditation, where, he alleges, Descartes asserts “unequivocally… that the idea of extension is produced in us by bodies and is therefore not innate” (147; my emphasis). It is only in the later of the two studies that McRae's reasons for regarding the testimony of the sixth Meditation as authoritative are fully spelt out. Express statements to the contrary “must give away”, he writes, “for the proof of the existence of body by the adventitious idea of it is absolutely crucial to the Meditations” (L 100; my emphasis). In this paper I propose to challenge McRae's interpretation of the extension of the concept “innate idea”, while acknowledging his signal contribution to the clearing up of the intensional meaning, or rather meanings, of the concept of innateness. My thesis is that “extension” is an innate idea, though constraints of time will allow me to do little more than try to show that McRae's stated reasons for rejecting this view are not compelling.

There are at issue here, I believe, two related questions: What is an adventitious idea for Descartes, and what is the relation between the understanding and the senses? Miles asserts that there is an adventitious idea of body but that it consists only of the proper sensibles, i.e., colours, sounds, tastes, odours, etc. Only these are given through the senses. Extension is not included in the adventitious idea, but is given only to the understanding. I take this to mean also that the modes of extension, figure, motion and magnitude, are not given through the senses either, since the thought of them presupposes extension. Against this I would say, however, that there are passages in which Descartes seems definitely to be including extension and its modes in what is given through the senses. In Meditation III when he introduces the notion of the adventitious idea it is as one which seems to be produced by external bodies. In his ideas of corporeal things he finds a few which he clearly perceives: extension, figure, relative position and change of positions. His ideas of the other qualities are confused and obscure. In MeditationVI he undertakes to examine the nature of sense, and to enquire whether from those ideas which are apprehended by this mode of thought— “or the mode which I entitle sensing (sensum)” —he could derive any certain proof of the existence of corporeal things. First he perceives by the senses that he has a body. “And outside myself, in addition to the extension, figure and motion of bodies, I sensed (sentiebam) in them” (AT VII, 74f.) hardness, heat, lights and colours, scents and sounds. At the end of the Principles of Philosophy in treating of the senses Descartes says that nothing in external things can be apprehended by us through sense except their figure, size and motion (IV. 198, AT VIII-1, 321). And later he remarks that we observe size, figures and motions by several senses, e.g., by touch, sight and hearing; “we also distinctly imagine and understand this. This cannot be said of other things that come under our senses, such as colours, sound and the like, which are perceived not by several senses but by single ones; for their images are always confused in our minds, nor do we know what they are” (IV. 200, AT VIII-1, 323).

It will come as no surprise that I have a different interpretation of the four passages in which, McRae claims, Descartes “definitely includes extension and its modes in what is given through the senses”. In the first, Descartes includes extension, etc., among his ideas of corporeal bodies. This is not to say that he includes them among his adventitious ideas, though. All adventitious ideas are ideas of external bodies. But the converse is not true. Not all ideas of corporeal bodies are ipso facto adventitious ideas, for, as I see it, the idea of the true and immutable nature of body is non-sensible and innate. McRae slides from “all adventitious ideas seem to be ideas of external bodies” to “all ideas of external bodies (including extension) are adventitious”.

Early in the Second Meditation Descartes has found grounds to doubt his previous opinions, and following his resolve to reject as false anything not entirely indubitable, he rejects these opinions. He then asks whether there might remain something impervious to doubt that he has not yet considered. One item as yet unconsidered is his own existence:

I myself, am I not at least something? But I have already denied that I had senses and body. Yet I hesitate, for what follows from that? Am I so dependent on body and senses that I cannot exist without these? But I was persuaded that there was nothing in all the world, that there was no heaven, no earth, that there were no minds, nor any bodies: was I not then likewise persuaded that I did not exist? (HR I, 150)

L'interet de Habermas pour la modernité dont traite son dernier livre, le tourne vers les travaux de Foucault. Celui-ci aurait mis en évidence, dès l'Histoire de la folie, ce qu'il y a de nouveau sous le ciel de la rationalité moderne. Dans plusieurs chapitres consacrés à Foucault (les chapitres 9 et 10 en entier, une partie du chapitre 11, et quelques références dans les chapitres 3, 4 et 12), Habermas esquisse une critique qui s'inspire substantiellement des travaux de Fink-Eitel (1980), Fraser (1981), Honegger (1982), Rippel et Münkler (1982), Dreyfus et Rabinow (1983) et de Honneth (1985). Cette critique est radicale et prend pour cible la présumée théorie du pouvoir de Foucault, les impasses où conduisent les instructions méthodologiques qu'il entend observer pour reconstruire l'histoire recente des sciences humaines, ainsi que les thèses au sujet du rapport entre les pratiques discursives et les pratiques non discursives, plus exactement les dispositifs de pouvoir dans lesquels les sciences humaines se trouvent intégrées. Bien que Foucault n'ait jamais développé une telle théorie (philosophique) du pouvoir et qu'il dise n'avoir jamais voulu l'élaborer, on doit constater avec Habermas que le thème du pouvoir est pourtant omniprésent, et que le concept de pouvoir doit ëtre considéré comme une notion centrale dans son oeuvre.

L'épistémologie de Kant, dont le but principal est d'expliquer la possibilité des jugements synthétiques a priori, est une épistémologie du point de vue du sujet ou (comme on pourrait la désigner aussi) «à la première personne»: le «sujet connaissant», dit Kant, «…compare, lie ou sépare [les] représentations et travaille … la matière brute des impressions sensibles pour en tirer une connaissance des objets…». C'est l'esprit, ou le moi pensant, comme il le soutient aussi, qui construit à partir des impressions reçues des sens (le «divers» de la sensibilité) une représentation objective de l'univers en soumettant les phénomènes à ses formes a priori et à ses catégories. Mais de quelle nature peut être ce «moi» qui connaît? Est-il possible d'en dire quelque chose? Pour lui, «nous n'avons ni ne pouvons [en] avoir la moindre connaissance…». Le «je» du «Je pense», comme on le lit dans la déduction transcendantale des catégories, doit pouvoir «accompagner toutes mes représentations…», mais il ne peut être pour lui-même un objet de connaissance ou de représentation parce que «je ne saurais connaître comme objet cela même [le sujet] qu'il me faut supposer pour connaître en général un objet…».

The main purpose of this paper is to argue, against the formalist or hypothetico-deductivist approach now dominant, that God or substance is for Spinoza a discovery, or indeed a kind of revelation. In both TdlE and Ethics, Spinoza affirms substance as the outcome of a search for salvation. He could not have held that a postulate or presupposition, even if thought necessary, can save man through abstract entailment. Indeed, salvation depends on “the quality of the object to which we cling with love”, the object being “the eternal and infinite thing” (TdlE 8–10).

The Anthropic Principle, in use by physicists, astronomers, and cosmologists, is currently under consideration by philosophers. This principle, in its various forms, appeals to man's existence as a constraint on our determination of natural laws and natural constants, as a principle of prediction, and, in its strongest form, as a principle of explanation which sanctions an argument for the universe being a product of design. What I shall endeavour to show here is (1) how this principle, in its various forms, is used in furthering our understanding of cosmology, and (2) why this principle cannot be used as a principle of explanation.

In 1974, George Grant delivered the Josiah Wood lectures at Mount Allison University on the theme English-Speaking Justice. The lectures, first published in 1978, have been republished, and a volume of later essays on somewhat related themes has recently appeared. Grant's work offers an impressionistic but deep challenge to the conception of justice in modern moral thought and practice, a challenge paralleled, in interesting and important ways, by concerns about morality raised in the writings of such persons as Alasdair MacIntyre, Bernard Williams, and, perhaps more surprisingly, J. L. Mackie. In this review, I want briefly to expound Grant's treatment of justice, to exhibit its relationships to other disquieting accounts, and to suggest some of the resources available to contractarian moral theory for lightening what for Grant is a terrifying darkness.

The thirteen papers in Morality, Reason and Truth address various dimensions of the complex relationship between morality and rationality. Most of the papers are new and they are generally at the cutting edge of current research. The collection is a substantial and important contribution to metaethics. The following are the views I found most challenging. Although they do not exhaust the book's contents, they are a good sample of its unity, range, and instructive power.

Understanding Wittgenstein consists of twenty-seven short, self-contained chapters, each concentrating narrowly on a small segment of text, mostly from The Philosophical Investigations. Hunter's own words are apt. “The volume is therefore not comprehensive; but on the topics of which it treats I hope it will be found to have the merit of getting down to the fine detail of Wittgenstein's work, and of often showing, rather than merely saying, what can be made of it” (xii).

It is quite difficult to respond briefly and effectively to such a devastating charge as that the only merit your book has is that it is honest. My strategy will be, by showing that a few of Resnick's criticisms are ill-taken, to generate the presumption that the same could be said of a lot more of them. I will first discuss some minor points, and then two larger issues.