The papers collected in this volume are the proceedings of the 1999 Royal Institute of Philosophy Conference, held in Edinburgh, Scotland. All of the, papers included here, except two, were invited as original contributions. The papers by Thomas Bontly and Michael Wheeler and Anthony Atkinson are expanded versions of shorter papers submitted in response to a general call for papers. I would like to thank the speakers/contributors for their many efforts and for their outstanding patience.

There are many people and organisations to be thanked both for assistance in the organisation of the conference and for assistance in the preparation of the proceedings for publication. I would like to express my gratitude to The Royal Institute of Philosophy for encouragement and help throughout all phases of the project. It is particularly a pleasure to acknowledge the assistance of Professor Anthony O'Hear and Ms Ingrid Purkiss. The Faculty of Arts, Divinity and Music at the University of Edinburgh provided funding, without which the conference could not have happened. The Scots Philosophical Club also provided financial support. Many of the graduate students of the Department of Philosophy, University of Edinburgh provided invaluable logistical support, as did many members of staff. I thank them for their contribution.

A few, special acknowledgements are in order. I would like to thank Timothy Williamson for the initial suggestion to propose a conference of this sort. David Papineau and Elliott Sober provided moral support and enthusiasm during the crucial early stages of development of the conference. Their support helped to attract such an impressive array of contributors.