On suppose généralement que Descartes fait jouer au libre vouloir un rôle secondaire par rapport à celui de la raison. Dans ce texte, j'avan cerai que sur certains points d'importance cruciale, c'est le libre vouloir cartésien qui possède la primauté sur la raison.

Michel Foucault disait de ses propres travaux qu'ils avaient été des essais aveugles (Archéologie du savoir, 26) qui ne s'éclairaient qu'en cours de route, au fur et à mesure que se précisait la méthode d'analyse historique qui y était appliquée. Us ont été reçus comme oeuvres d'his-torien. Cet accueil laissait cependant l'inconfortable impression que Foucault envahissait le champ de l'histoire en se comportant en his-torien cannibale, en dissolvant de son regard de sauvage les évidences incontestées et en résolvant avec facilité les problèmes sur lesquels les spécialistes se cassaient les dents. Cela lui a valu une réception controversée. Foucault eut, en effet, maille à partir non seulement avec les historiens, mais aussi avec les spécialistes des disciplines auxquelles il s'intéressait. De plus, chaque fois qu'on lui demandait de définir le “point d'où il soulevait la terre épistémique ”, de circonscrire l'espace blanc où il s'installe quand il fait ses enquêtes et fabrique les histoires sur l a folie, sur la maladie et la naissance de la clinique, sur l'apparition des sciences de la vie, du langage et de l'économie, sur la naissance de la prison et sur l'usage des plaisirs des grecs au dix-neuvième siècle, Foucault répondait en véritable anarchiste qu'il n'était ni ceci, ni cela, qu'il était plutôt contre toutes ces étiquettes que l'on essayait de lui coller.

There is a well-known argument which is an attempt to show that all arguments in favour of determinism are self-defeating. Proponents of the Determinism-Is-Self-Defeating Argument (hereafter referred to as DISDA) claim that all pro-deterministic arguments, if successful, undermine rationality and epistemic justification. Indeed, the proponents of DISDA claim that since the truth of determinism implies that we cannot claim to know the truth of any proposition, then it follows, of course, that proponents of determinism cannot claim to know that determinism is itself true. Hence, the self-defeating nature of determinism.

A natural, and popular, way to approach the identity of a continuant under a sortal F is to suppose there to be:

(a) A synchronic F-unity relation, binding bits of a world-slice into discrete F-stages.

(b) A diachronic F-unity relation, binding series of F-stages into F's.

In a Minkowskian world, of course, the synchronic and diachronic relations must reveal themselves as simply aspects of a single unity relation for F. But since the proper time of the continuant itself is the most natural generator of space and time axes, the decomposition of the unity-relation into (a) and (b) will normally be effortless.

The assumption is often made that there cannot be scientific laws about individuals. I shall try to provide a plausible semantics and epistemology for scientific laws about individuals. This would be interesting, however, only ifone were tempted to believe that mentioning individuals did not disqualify a sentence from scientific lawhood. To begin with, I will try to provide such a temptation.

Les attaques que Feyerabend a dirigées depuis un certain temps contre les conceptions dominantes de la rationalité scientifique, celles des inductivistes et de Popper principalement, sont intimement liées à sa manière d'envisager l'opposition entre le réalisme scientifique et l'instrumentalisme, c'est-à-dire entre deux thèses concernant les rapports de la rèalité et de la connaissance scientifique. C'est ce dernier point que nous aimerions aborder ici, dans le projet d'y apporter un certain nom-bre de clarifications, qui permettront aussi de montrer que les difficultés que Feyerabend a cru trouver recemment dans la position realiste, et qui ont provoqué une modification de ses conceptions, viennent de ce qu'il n'a pas vu toute l'importance de certaines distinctions.

Various philosophical accounts of function attributions have taken the following form: f is a function of a structure X in a system S if and only if X does f in S and f causally contributes to G. While sharing this form, these accounts disagree over how “G” is to be specified. Specifications of “G” range from the fairly determinate (e.g., “the reproductive capacity of S”, or “the survival of S”) to the less determinate (e.g., “some goal of S” or “some good of S”). Although much of the debate over functions has been concerned with the proper characterization of “G”, it has become apparent that theories which fit this schema are subject to now-standard counterexamples in which f does in fact causally contribute to the realization of G, but f fails to be a function of X in that f's contribution is accidental in nature. Consider, for example, goal-state theory according to which f is a function of X in S just in case f contributes to the realization of some goal of S. Imagine that Jones has a silver dollar in his shirt pocket which deflects a bullet meant for his chest. Assuming that the coin is in Jones's pocket for reasons unrelated to his goal of continued existence, although the coin contributes to this goal, it does not have the function of “bullet deflector” since its contribution is merely accidental. We can easily generate similar counter-examples for other theories which fit this schema but differ in how “G” is specified. I will call this the problem of “accidental G-generating effects”. Counterexamples of this type have put pressure on theorists to modify this schema or at least to add additional conditions in order to rule out “accidental functions”. In this paper I will first examine various modifications which have been suggested for avoiding this type of counterexample, and then develop a new approach to the question of “accidental functions”.

The author struggles to come to grips here with the philosophical complexities and personal tragedies that disorient us when we reflect on the great and pervasive inequalities in human societies. His egalitarianism is radical in denying the justice of the inequalities that liberals like Rawls would countenance, and in denying that justice and capitalism are compatible. Nielsen displays a masterly knowledge of the literature of social justice, especially that which bears on Rawls's A Theory of Justice and Nozick's Anarchy, State and Utopia, the celebrated philosophical flagships of liberalism and conservatism respectively; this feature of the book should be useful for advanced students of social and political philosophy who need to acquire a sense for the texture of contemporary argument in the field. The thicket of sturdy arguments in Equality and Liberty should convince Rawlsians to accept many tenets of Nielsen's radical egalitarianism, or else to re-examine their thinking about social justice. And the extended critique of Anarchy, State and Utopia should persuade Nozickians of the need for “a reasonably sophisticated political sociology and a sound critical theory of society” if one is to philosophize adequately about social justice (5). Many will find this critique the most valuable part of the book.

I am grateful to Josiane Boulad-Ayoub and Wesley Cooper for their generous treatment of my Equality and Liberty and for their probing criticisms. They make me keenly aware that I have often not expressed myself clearly enough and they have set in motion a process of self-questioning that will extend well beyond this discussion. They drive home to me, once again, the realization of how difficult it is to get anything right in philosophy.

Since they, for the most part, raise different sorts of issues, I shall discuss their criticisms separately starting with Cooper's account.

Since its coinage in the eighteenth century, the concept of ideology has been recurrently invoked as a tool of analysis, a term of abuse, or both together. The concept is central to the theories of Marx, Mannheim, and others, and the whole subject of the sociology of knowledge is an elaboration upon it. But just what the concept is meant to convey is normally so unclear or controversial, even question-begging, that it is natural to want to dispense with the concept entirely. That, in part, was what the advocates of the end-of-ideology—like Raymond Aron, Edward Shils, and Daniel Bell—urged back in the 1950s. But these would-be defenders of reason, pragmatism, and political centrism were almost immediately and quite predictably attacked for themselves being the victims or purveyors of an ideology. Whether or not they were, the lesson is evident: the issues of ideology are not likely to go away.

Professor Bennett's new book on Spinoza is a notably ambitious one. It i s ambitious in two ways. First, having worked on the book for twenty-five years, Bennett intends a treatment of Spinoza's Ethics at once comprehensive in scope and detailed in analysis. He tells us that his book “expounds and argues with Spinoza's Ethics, in the hope of drawing into the argument philosophers who have not previously brought Spinoza into their work as an energetic collaborator or antagonist” (1). Second, Bennett claims to have written a book superior to other commentaries in that “The courtly deference which pretends that Spinoza is always or usually right, under some rescuing interpretation is one thing; it is quite another to look to him, as I have throughout this book, as a teacher, one who can help us to see things which we might not have seen for ourselves. This is showing him a deeper respect, but also holding him to a more demanding standard” (372).