This demonstration of self-esteem by A. D. Godley would be provocative if it were not unmistakably ironical. Those who are not dons know better. They remember and endorse Hilaire Belloc's onslaught on the remote and ineffectual don who dared attack his Chesterton. Dons live in ivory towers, untouched by time's revenges, the law's delays and the insolence of office. They are innocent of all the guile of the real world of politics and commerce, telegrams and anger.

‘Reference’ was the term Max Black and I chose to render Frege's term ‘Bedeutung’ when we published English translations of some selections from his works. We preferred ‘stand for’ as a translation of the verb ‘bedeuten’; but from ‘stand for’ we could not form a general term to render the corresponding German noun. Our renderings were chosen because, like the German words, they were in themselves colourless and untechnical, and on that very account could take on in context whatever special import Frege's way of thinking might give them. Black ! and I could not foresee how the English language was going to develop. T Like another familiar English word, the word ‘gay’, ‘reference’ has S become the badge or slogan of a certain set of people; those who do not belong to the set but go on using the word as they always have done may find themselves on occasion seriously misunderstood.

1. Nowadays, I am told, many popular novels have anti-heroes not heroes. So perhaps it accords with the spirit of the times for my sermon to have not a text but an anti-text. This is taken from the first chapter of Our Knowledge of the External World by Bertrand Russell. It reads: ‘All the questions which have what is called a human interest—such, for example, as the question of a future life—belong, at least in theory, to special sciences and are capable, at least in theory, of being decided by empirical evidence … a genuinely scientific philosophy cannot hope to appeal to any except those who have the wish to understand, to escape from intellectual bewilderment … it does not offer, or attempt to offer, a solution to the problem of human destiny, or of the destiny of the Universe’..

The idea of doing something for its own sake interests me for two reasons. First, I should like to understand better two opposing reactions that I have felt on coming across the phrase ‘for its own sake’ used in earnest. When told that knowledge is worth pursuing for its own sake and that this is what the study of science at a university ought to be like—not an adjunct to commercially motivated research in a product I design and development team funded by local industry—I, and others, feel that something pure and noble, holy, good and true is being said. On the other hand, I recognize that to some, who would probably describe themselves as more realistic than myself, the claim that knowledge should be, and is being, pursued for its own sake has a hollow ring. Nowadays, academics themselves feel uneasy when they hear this sort of thing being said in public in mixed company. But they do continue to say such things to each other, at least occasionally in private, among consenting adults. Furthermore, I do attach impor- tance to the thought that to do the right thing for its own sake is a shining example of moral goodness. At the same time I acknowledge that the idea of a good deed done for its own sake is less than crystal clear I and that, to many, the person who claims to be doing something for its own sake sounds like someone who smiles at himself in the mirror in the morning in order to find one approving face before setting out to commit his next crime against humanity. I should like to know whether this phrase ‘for its own sake’ will bear the weight I want to place on it or whether a more sceptical attitude is called for.

David Hume's claim that necessary connection is essential to causality was at the expense of a useful causal distinction we sometimes note with the words ‘necessity’ and ‘contingency’. And since, as J. L. Mackie has stated, Hume made ‘the most significant and influential single contribution to the theory of causation’, subsequent writers on causality, regardless of their support for, or opposition to, Hume, have joined him in trampling this distinction. The object of this paper is not so much to undermine one of Hume's conclusions as it is to describe a use of ‘necessary’ that, while surviving in popular usage, is ignored or obfuscated in the literature on causality.

Philosophy as an academic programme is very young in higher institutions of learning in Nigeria. Third World developing countries usually have concerns other than the teaching of philosophy on their agenda when trying to disburse their meagre resources for the educational sector. They would want to clothe, feed, house and provide medical care for their teeming populations first, and then people who want to T philosophize can do so. So their priority in the area of education is not I for people who will split hairs over words and concepts and theorise about lofty ideals—the popular image of the philosopher—but for the training of agriculturalists, technicians, doctors, engineers and others who can contribute much more tangibly to the development process. For this reason, many people regard a department of philosophy in a university as a luxury item which developing countries can ill afford. For this reason too, the philosophy department, usually the latest arrival in its faculty, is added as an appendix and is the first to be eyed when a scraping becomes necessary in the face of reduced subvention to the institution.

Weeter and Duvall were good friends and philosophical colleagues. Their friendship was served by the fact that they shared a number of important philosophical commitments. Both, for instance, were theists. Both also devoutly believed in possible worlds, propositions, and essences. And furthermore, both were ardent libertarians.

The door's being shut caused the room to be wanner. As we can also say, a set of conditions or events which included the door's being shut caused the room to be warmer. The set of conditions or events. whatever is to be said more carefully of their ontological category, and their closer specification, can be called a causal chrwnslance. The question of causal priority, as it is named, is the question of analysing or elucidating the difference or asymmetry between cause and causal circumstance on the one hand, and, on the other hand, their effect. David Sanford does not like my answer1 and sticks to his own more original one2. I should like to say briefly why

Biological theories about the nature and origin of ethics are important, j both because they may be largely true, and because distorted versions are sometimes effective in moulding people's ethical beliefs in curious i ways. The pernicious effects (real and supposed) which sometimes follow the application of biology to ethics stem from an assortment of misinterpretations, while, correctly interpreted, even the most extreme biological determinism need not be supposed to diminish the worth of conscious individuals, nor be incompatible with genuinely ethical behaviour.

I am grateful for Professor Manser's criticisms of my brief remarks on f retribution, and in particular for his concluding challenge (‘ … what J injury, on his account, did Adam and Eve do to God in the Garden of r Eden?’), because they bring out the central point I was trying to make—that ‘Retribution aims at a restoration of balance by compensation’ (p. 523). I interpreted ‘compensation’ widely, to include the disadvantaging (punishment) a person should suffer ‘if somebody breaks the rules of a particular deal’ (ibid.), in order that the proper status of the participants be restored. The injury done by Adam and Eve to God, and their punishment, come under this heading.

Can an action cease to be required of a moral agent solely because it comes too costly? Can self-sacrifice or risk of self-sacrifice serve as a limit on our moral obligations? Two recent articles in Philosophy, concerned primarily with the possibility of supererogatory action, suggest very different answers to these questions.

Susan Lowe's criticism of Freya Mora's argument depends for almost all its force on one admittedly unfortunate word in Mora's article. There are other words there equally unhappy. But some simple verbal substitutions that would cause no unease to W. S. Gilbert's Lord Chancellor are sufficient to disarm Lowe's objection, and restore to Mora's solution of the problem of evil whatever strength it had.