In a recent article, Don Marquis canvasses the arguments on both sides of the abortion controversy and then puts forward his own argument against abortion:

A. To deprive someone of the value of his or her future is prima facie wrong.

B. The future an adult has is included in the future of the fetus it developed from.

C. Abortion deprives the fetus of the value of its future.

D. Therefore, abortion is prima facie wrong.

I wish to show that this reasoning in no way settles the issue of whether abortion is wrong. Section 1 concerns premise B, Sections 2 and 3 C, and Section 4 A.Notes

La vocation de la philosophie comme connaissance fondamentale fait l'objet de doutes insistants depuis plus de deux siècles. La première mise en cause de cette vocation date du développement de la science moderne expérimentale, de l'empirisme qui lui est solidaire. La seconde remise en cause est la grande affaire de notre siècle. L'affirmation de l'essentielle finitude de l'homme requérait qu'à nouveau soit interrogée, reniée la métaphysique dans son refus de la temporalité, dans son désir d'assurer son universalité dans un arrière-monde intetnporel. Ainsi, le problème que se pose Kant face à la critique radicale de la métaphysique contenue dans la pensée de Hume se redouble depuis Nietzsche. Il convient alors d'interroger la possibilité de la philosophie comme savoir des fondements, à la fois vis-à-vis des sciences empiriques et vis-à-vis de cette critique de la culture à laquelle devrait se ramener une philosophie déchue au statut de simple doxa.

Michel Serres vient de nous préserter un livre qui promet de susciter de nombreux débats extrêmement intéressants. Ce penseur versé dans l'histoire de la philosophie mais aussi dans celle des sciences, passionné également par rétat actuel des savoirs et des sociétés, nous a habitués depuis plus de vingt ans à une réflexion multiforme et originale, assortie un style qui témoigne élégamment de son souci litteraire. Le contrat naturel prolonge cette démarche, cette fois-ci en tentant de fournir aux préoccupations écologiques une assise philosophique. renjeu est de taille. Il exige que soient repensés non seulement nos rapports pratiques au monde, à la «nature», à l'«environnement», mais d'abord et avant tout la représentation que nous nous faisons de ceux-ci. Il s'agit bien d'une question philosophique: à sa façon, elle reprend le débat avec la rationalité moderne dont on dit souvent que sa teneur (exclusivement?) technique et scientifique nous a menés au désastre actuel. Par-delà l'indiscutable pertinence d'une réflexion philosophique consacrée à la question de eécologie, c'est donc le statut de la raison et de la nature qui est ici questionné.

Jean Buridan donne du syllogisme catégorique élémentaire une théorie qui diffère notablement de la théorie scolastique traditionnelle, dont celle de Guillaume d'Ockham peut être considérée comme représentative. Je n'en veux pour preuve que le fait suivant: alors que selon Ockham il y a six modes «utiles» de prémisses syllogistiques de la première figure, selon Buridan il y en a huit. Mon propos sera ici d'expliquer cette divergence et d'en dégager la portée. Pour ce faire je me propose de reconstituer la théorie buridanienne du syllogisme catégorique élémentaire, c'est-à-dire d'en exposer les composantes essentielles en rendant explicites les concepts et thèses qu'elles contiennent parfois implicitement.

The high quality of the 20 papers in this collection is evidence that even in an area which has been repeatedly mined, there is always room for interesting, well presented thought.

The authors represented include both philosophers and working scientists. Some are well known contributors to philosophical discussion, while the work of others (including a number of European scientists and philosophers) will be less familiar to North American journal audiences.

Steven Stich's The Fragmentation of Reason will get the adrenalin pumping. At least it will for-reactionaries (like me) who cling to truth, reason and knowledge as cognitive values.

Steve Stich sets himself to undermine the entire analytic tradition in epistemology. His book is infused with the spirit of the “radical epistemic reformer.” I do not think he succeeds. Reformations are hard to launch in philosophy. Nonetheless, he raises some deep and troubling issues.

Face aux difficultés soulevées par le rapport de l'intellect à la chose intelligée — question qui suscite de nombreux débats aux confins des XIIIe et XIVe siècles —, Guillaume d'Ockham adopte une solution radicale: elle consiste à supprimer tout intermédiate entre l'acte d'intellection et la chose réelle, donnée dans sa présence singulière, ultime cause efficiente du procès d'émergence et d'élaboration de la connaissance. De ce fait, Guillaume d'Ockham rejette tout corrélat de la connaissance qui serait distinct de la chose même. Cela revient à invalider aussi bien l'idée d'intentio in concreto que celle d'esse obiectivum. Sans faire l'unanimité, loin de là, la solution ockhamiste trouve des echos aussi bien chez des anglais tels que Gauthier Chatton ou Robert Holkot, que dans la pensée parisienne à partir de Jean Buridan. L'essentiel, de ce point de vue, est l'exigence de présence de la chose même dans le renvoi sémantique et dans le rapport de connaissance, par conséquent la détermination de l'objet — entendu comme ce qui fait face à l'intellect — à partir de la présence et de l'être donné, l'instauration d'une relation de causalité efficiente (au moins à titre de cause partielle) entre la chose et la connaissance.

Over the years it has been suggested that it is possible to construct deductive arguments for the existence of Satan and other sorts of evil beings, modelled on Anselm's argument in the Proslogium. From time to time such suggestions and similar proposals have also appeared in print. In my judgment, such suggestions and proposals are ill-conceived, misguided and foolish. My reasons for this judgment are all implicitly contained in Anselm's Proslogium or in his reply to Gaunilon. When examined in light of Anselm's insights, arguments for the existence of Satan and other sorts of evil beings turn out to be unsound.

An obligation, in the sense in which it was of interest to medieval logicians from about the early thirteenth century to the end of the scholastic period, is, according to Paul of Venice, a relation limiting one to take some statement affirmatively or negatively. This relation is based on the actions of two individuals: one (the opponent) obligates the other (the respondent) by first putting forward a sentence which the respondent agrees to affirm or deny for a limited time. The sentence the respondent agrees to affirm is called the positum; that which he agrees to deny, the depositum; and his act of agreeing, the admissio. After this relation is established between the opponent and respondent, the opponent proceeds by putting forward a series of sentences to which the respondent replies by granting, denying, or doubting — all in accordance with certain rules the two individuals have previously accepted as governing their exchange. If the respondent at any time grants what is inconsistent with the sentence he agreed to uphold, or responds in a way that violates the accepted rules, the exchange comes to an end. The respondent has failed in his obligation.

Philosophers need not be located in departments of philosophy in order to be worth reading. Here is a work eminently warranting attention from professional philosophers, perhaps all the more because its author, William Leiss (who earned a Ph.D. in philosophy in 1969 but has never held a formal faculty position in that subject) writes from a variety of alternative perspectives. His first academic position was in Political Science and Environmental Studies at the University of Regina. From there he travelled to York University as Associate Professor of Environmental Studies, taking a year out to serve as Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto before returning to York and again adding Political Science to his duties in Environmental Studies. Since 1980 he has been Professor of Communication at Simon Fraser University. Although originally a New Yorker, with academic credentials from south of the border, he now writes with distinctly Canadian examples, outlook and style.

Cet ouvrage de Pascal Engel doit être fortement recommandé pour plusieurs raisons. On est d'abord frappé par l'ampleur du travail accompli et l'étendue du domaine couvert. La documentation est fouillée, l'exposé est clair et un équilibre est toujours maintenu entre les questions générales et les questions de détail. Engel ne perd jamais de vue la perspective d'ensemble qu'il s'est donnée et qui concerne la nature de la logique, y compris lorsqu'il s'emploie à faire certaines nuances ou à proposer une distinction subtile. Il aurait été facile en pareille matière de proposer un mauvais choix de thèmes. Là encore, Engel s'est bien acquitté de sa tâche. On a affaire à un ouvrage dans lequel l'auteur va toujours droit à l'essentiel. Plusieurs sujets sont à peine effleurés, mais cette décision est très souvent heureuse puisqu'elle permet à l'auteur d'établir des liens entre des problématiques qui, de prime abord, semblent très éloignées les unes des autres. L'auteur fait montre d'un étonnant esprit de synthèse et plusieurs thèmes font, à ma connaissance, une première apparition dans la littérature philosophique francophone. Il s'agit donc d'une contribution à la philosophie de la logique qui mérite d'être signalée. On regrettera peut-être la présence d'un assez grand nombre d'erreurs typographiques (j'en ai rapidement relevées plus de cent cinquante). Dans la plupart des cas, il ne s'agit que de coquilles mais, dans d'autres cas, elles risquent de nuire à la compréhension du texte surtout lorsqu'elles interviennent dans des formules ou des définitions.

Stephen Neale defends Russell's famous theory of definite descriptions against more than 40 years' worth of criticisms beginning long before Strawson's “On Referring.” Ever since Strawson's parting shot in that paper (“… ordinary language has no exact logic”), the theory of descriptions has been a battleground for the larger issue of whether a systematic theory of the semantics of natural language is really possible. Neale provides us with a sketch of part of that project as it currently stands. All of the complexities and irregularities of the use of definite descriptions in natural language can be combined, after all, in a single theory based on an “exact logic.” Neale argues that one can give a Russellian account of “incomplete descriptions” (as in ‘The table is covered with books’), generic uses of ‘the’ (‘The whale is a mammal’), plural descriptions (‘The men carried the piano’) and, of central interest, the purportedly referential uses identified by Donnellan (as in ‘The murderer of Smith is insane’ when it is Jones the accused we have in mind). Neale follows familiar answers to these objections; incorporate demonstratives into the account (to get ‘The table over there …’), distinguish the proposition expressed from the one meant (the “referential” use is what was meant not said), and point out that the problem is not unique to definite descriptions and so cannot be a fault of any particular theory of them (many expressions have generic, plural and “referential” uses).

Philosophical inquiries in a particular field sometimes simply fade out. Interest shifts to new problems, the old problems come to seem intractable, philosophical curiosity does not survive the detailed work a glimpse of the solution discloses as necessary, or one finds that there is nothing new to say, that one can no longer be creative about the issues involved. But sometimes the loose ends are recognized and someone attempts to tie them up together and bring the inquiries to a more or less satisfactory conclusion. John Bishop has done this in his book about agency.

This book is both shorter and more comprehensive than any of Quine's other six since Word and Object. But let this description raise no fears that it must stretch itself too thin, at least for veteran students of his major philosophical project, “to examine the evidential support of science” (p. 2). For with less detail in focus, the structural elements of that project stand revealed as never before. Improvements in presentation, as Quine sees them, help here. And veterans can learn of certain changes, notable if not huge, in various Quinean views. For besides summing up and explaining, Pursuit of Truth moves on.

Dans son ouvrage Schools and Scholars in Fourteenth-Century England, William J. Courtenay nous offre une riche synthèse historique sur la philosophie et la théologie en Angleterre au XIVe siècle. Ce travail mérite la plus grande attention, autant pour sa contribution à l'histoire de la pensée, que pour ses énoncés sur les rapports entre la philosophie et la société au Moyen Âge. Car je lis le livre de Courtenay comme un fructueux dialogue entre Clio et Philosophie, et c'est le point de vue qui retiendra mon attention. La présente contribution se veut davantage une réflexion à propos du livre, qu'un véritable compte rendu. Elle tente d'explorer les difficiles rapports entre l'histoire de la philosophie et l'histoire, sur lesquels Alain de Libera (1991) nous a livré ses idées, tout récemment.

David Sanford's If P, Then Q is an ambitious book, aimed at two difficult tasks and addressed to two audiences. It combines a survey of historical and contemporary work on-conditionals with a presentation-of, Sanford's personal views. And it is addressed to both undergraduate students, without, logical training, and professionals seriously interested in conditionals. It is marred by the impossibility of achieving both aims in a book this size, and by the strains of simultaneously addressing audiences with such different needs and interests.

Once, G. E. Moore scorned the “common point of view which takes the world of experience as ultimately real.” The argument Moore followed to this sceptical conclusion in his fledgling 1897 fellowship dissertation was a legacy from Kant's Antinomies. By 1899 Moore had renounced idealist conclusions; he set out both to disengage from Kantian arguments and to reconcile with “the world of experience.” Moore's work for a stable realist basis for knowledge to fulfil both aims occupied his most famous argument, in his 1939 lecture “Proof of an External World.” Moore himself is sometimes supposed to have thought the argument of this masterwork unsatisfactory where it treats a traditional sceptical puzzle posed by dreaming. Critics, including Wittgenstein, have portrayed Moore's best reply to philosophical scepticism as dogmatic mere assertion, unresponsive or as ineffectual as sheer handwaving. However, these critics rate Moore's success against scepticism based on interpretations of “Proof of an External World” that neglect its part in Moore's campaign against Kant. Consequently, some potentially pivotal questions — which in this study I merely broach — remain wide open; for example, why in presenting his famous 1939 proof did Moore state that its purpose was to refute what “Kant declares to be his opinion, that there is only one possible proof of the existence of things outside of us” (PXW, p. 145)? And why did Moore explicitly reject the formula for posing philosophical scepticism in which Kant famously proclaimed this problem “a scandal to philosophy”?

Considerable debate in philosophy of psychology has recently focussed upon two central themes. One concerns the ontological status of propositional attitudes like beliefs and desires, the other on the proper computational account of cognitive architecture. In the ontological debate, the two most prominent positions are eliminativism, which claims that commonsense psychology is false because there are no such things as beliefs and desires; and versions of intentional realism, which counters that beliefs and desires actually do exist in the mind/brain. In the cognitive architecture debate, there are again two outstanding views: classical cognitivism, which holds that cognition is something closely akin to symbol manipulation; and parallel distributed processing (or connectionism), which roughly maintains that cognition is the distributed activation of several simple, non-symbolic processing units. Furthermore, in spite of their different topics, the two debates have been linked by a number of authors who suggest that where you stand in the cognitive architecture debate should help determine where you stand in the debate over prepositional attitudes. So, for example, writers like Jerry Fodor have used the plausibility of classical cognitivism to defend a realist interpretation of propositional attitudes, while writers like Steve Stich and myself have argued that certain forms of connectionism support eliminativism.

Semiotics, the age-old investigation of signs, is still striving for acknowledgement as a scientific (and academic) discipline. Though the ‘linguistic turn’ in the philosophical disciplines seemed to be followed by a ‘semiotic turn’ in many sciences during the 1970s, efforts were not crowned by great success. When seen from a certain distance, a definition of semiotics as a discipline can only be obtained from its history. Research into the sources of the human pre-occupation with signs, and with concepts or conceptions of signs, is really desirable and even necessary when a field of considerable scientific interest at the brink of being awarded the rank of a discipline runs the risk of getting lost between the unificationism of the Morris-type and the elegance of pseudo-mathematical empty classificationism (such as demonstrated in the late Max Bense's Stuttgart School) on the one side, and profitable exploitation of the sign's popularized design qualities on the other.