There can be no exploitative competitors in the practice of philosophy. In the primitive communist world of science and the arts, the achievement of each—whatever the accidental rewards of laurel wreathes and royalties—is essentially the enhancement of all. The same is true of that world's institutions, and explicitly of the aims of the Royal Institute of Philosophy, 1‘to promote the study and discussion of philosophy and original work in it’. It was in the furtherance of this aim that the Institue devoted its lecture series of 1983-4 to marking the advent of The Society for Applied Philosophy and of its then new journal; and that of 1993—4 to marking the advent of the new Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Psychiatry, promoted by the Philosophy Group of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

This volume is based on the resulting lectures, and we are grateful to K. W. M. Fulford, Rom Harré and Tony Hope for their advice in planning the programme.