One of the greatest difficultiess in the understanding Hegel is the notorious obscurity of his terminology. Even a sympathetic reader faces the problems that in seeking clarification of one term he is led to another which is equally obscure and which often presupposes an understanding of the first. But Hegel himself described the structure of his system as circular and stressed the contextual nature of his terminology. Indeed, he insisted that only a philosophy which is so structured could be worthy of the name “science.” The difficulty in understanding Hegel is thus not merely a terminological one. It is primarily the difficulty of understanding why Hegel conceived philosophical science as he did, and why the problems which confront Hegel's enterprise arise in the first place. For unless we can make the problems of the Hegelian philosophy our own, in the minimal sense of understanding why they arise, our appreciation of Hegel will be limited to “the repetition and inspired variation of Hegel's theses or their criticism from a distance which blurs their structures.” What is needed is an “unscientific” introduction to Hegelian science which provides insight into the motivation for Hegel's standpoint precisely because it does not presuppose it. Hegel himself suggested that such an introduction could be found in scepticism. However, Hegel declined to provide a sceptical introduction to science on the grounds that it would be unscientific. For Hegel, the path to science was already science.

It is well known that Sellars' account of linguistic meaning is closely linked to a framework of Rylean-behaviouristic concepts. It is far from clear, however, what the nature of this relation exactly is. Some (e.g., Chisholm, [2], 523) have construed this relation as conceptually so tight as to commit Sellars to logical behaviourism about meaning: semantical statements would be shorthand ways of talking about overt verbal and nonverbal behaviour and behavioural dispositions. On the other hand, some (e.g., J. Young, [18]), have construed the relation so loosely as to deny that the behaviouristic framework can possibly provide a conceptually adequate basis for understanding semantical discourse.

In his essay “Brains and Behavior” in Analytical Philosophy, edited by R. Butler, 2nd Series, Blackwell, 1965), Putnam has contended that Logical Behaviourism is not merely dead, its corpse has become olfactorily unattractive. For, says Putnam, while the translatability of mentalistic terms into the vocabulary of overt behaviour is no longer a live issue, innocent philosophers are still being corrupted by sinful urges of a Logical-Behaviouristic sort, namely, (a) suspicion that statements relating behaviour to mental events may be more than just synthetic, and (b) the possibility that the translatability thesis breaks down purely and simply through a mismatching of vagueness in the way, e.g., that a statement about baldness fails at translation into a statement about the number of hairs on a person's head merely because of the inherent vagueness of the term ‘bald’. But while the latter version of neo-Logical-Behaviourism can be dismissed with a curt reminder of what has been learned about the observational irreducibility even of dispositional terms, I remain unconvinced that propositions linking mental and behavioural events are wholly devoid of analytic support.

An Acquaintance of mine decided, in the late 1950s, to become an officer in the U.S. Navy, until he discovered a Navy regulation stating that ugly men would not be accepted as officer candidates. Surely there is something suspicious about such a policy. Yet, in a time when people are so conscious of the many forms of discrimination — race, colour, sex, age, religion — it is somewhat surprising that little serious attention is given to the practice of what I shall call ‘aesthetic discrimination against persons’, discrimination on the basis of appearance or looks. It is true that, in recent years, some social scientists have conducted research leading them to the conclusion that human beings prefer and esteem good looking people over plain or ugly ones (a conclusion the truth of which has been known for thousands of years prior to its ‘proof’). A few of these researchers have even been willing to venture moral opinions on the subject.

In a Recent article [9], Alexander Rosenberg attacks the “manipulative” view of causation as being unilluminating and as being beset with difficulties. As a proponent of that view [3], I have felt it necessary to take up cudgels in its defence.

Rosenberg's criticisms are directed at Gasking's version of this view [5]. Gasking's recipe for causation is, “one says ‘A causes B’ in cases where one could produce an event of the A sort as a means to producing one of the B sort” (p. 485). Here it is taken for granted that we have general manipulative techniques for producing events of the A sort and that this is implicitly assumed when one speaks of A as a cause. There is one qualification to this formula for causes which arises from the necessity for individuating processes, namely, that, for A to be the cause of B, it must not always lead to B (for then the technique for producing A would also be a B-producing one), but only in special cases.

Sila philosophie de Jean-Jacques Rousseau connaît un regain devie par l'actualité de ses thèmes et par ses nombreuses affinités avec la conscience contemporaine, la littérature rousseauiste récente témoigne bien pour sa part de l'attrait qu'exerce sur les philosophes la pensée de Jean-Jacques.

Most books defending the position now know as “libertarianism”, the thesis that government ought to confine itself only to the most minimal functions of preventing or punishing force and fraud, can be dismissed with little scruple as the work of cranks. And some have already done so with this one as well: but wrongly. It is clearly the work of a person of extraordinary brilliance, penetration, and learning, possessed of a pungent style and an uncommon flair for paradox and counterexample. Those who are inclined to reject it out of hand because its conclusions will seem incredible might also bear in mind that its author is a man to whom his colleague John Rawls (whose conclusions do seem very credible to many) has expressed gratitude and indebtedness. At any rate, I propose to take the work with complete seriousness. And after all, should there not be considerable attraction i n the view that the only enforceable duty is that of respecting the freedom of our fellows as completely as possible? Surely it behooves us to see just why this will not do, if it won't; and no better opportunity for examining the view has arisen than that provided by the publication of this book.

This volume is the record of a symposium on the structer of scientific theories held in urbana, Illinois in the spring of 1969. ofSeven main papers (though two are represented in this volume by “summary-abstracts”), commentaries, discussions, and a postscript form the bulk of the book. The rest is a nearly 240-page monograph-in-the-guise-of-an-introduction by the editor titled “The Search for Philosophic Understanding of Scientific Theories”.

Books on the major thinkers in the history of philosophy are faced with difficult tasks. Not only do they run the risk of being too scholarly for the nonspecialist or insufficiently detailed for the specialist, but also they must observe the fine line between avoiding anachronism and establishing the current relevance and merits of the past philosopher. These problems are compounded for the English-speaking philosopher by a figure like Hegel who is either identified with a very unhegelian British idealism, or largely ignored. The anglophone interpreter of Hegel must find fresh ways of expressing his ideas and methods for a philosophical audience whose recent resurgence of interest in Hegel emerges from a zero degree, or worse, of understanding or empathy. Charles Taylor's book is brilliantly successful at rehabilitating Hegel and providing a vigorous, stimulating reading of his major works.