As With other topics about which philosophers theorize, there are two approaches to semantics. One might begin by stipulating what the content of a semantic theory of a language is to be, that is, what the theory is to say in describing what each expression in the language means. Alternatively, one can begin by trying to formulate semantic theories with adequate descriptive apparatus – vocabulary and description forming rules – for marking the differences between one thing and another that an expression of some language(s) may mean, and then, with theories in hand, see what content or significance can plausibly be assigned to the vocabulary and descriptions which the theories yield. Adherents of the second approach are apt to regard the first approach, with suspicion, as a piece of a priori theorizing about what it comes to for an expression to mean what it does, hence about what properties speakers of the relevant language are prepared to recognize in it. But there is little doubt that the first approach has been the most popular one with philosophers as a whole, nor that the most popular forms of stipulation about content centre on the idea of assigning ‘truth conditions’ to sentences.

Violence, Idéologie: les deux termes ont au moins ceci de commun qu'on les emploie à propos de tout, c'est à dire finalement de rien. Si l'on met dans le même bateau l'agent de police et le tortionnaire, l'enseignement de l'instituteur et le lavage de cerveau, on accuse tout le monde et Ton excuse tout le monde ! Si tout est idéologie, il n'y a plus d'idéologie. Si tout est violence, la violence n'est plus rien du tout.

At The end of the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, in the Appendix entitled “For an Understanding with the Reader,” Johannes Climacus, the pseudonymous author, renders the following verdict:

So then the book is superfluous; let no one therefore take the pains to appeal to it as an authority; for he who thus appeals to it has eo ipso misunderstood it.

L'Histoire de la pensée occidentale, Heidegger nous le dit, se constitue dans l'unité d'une tradition cohérente et bien définie. Il se peut que sur ce point il ait largement raison. Quoi qu'il en soit, l'œuvre de Heidegger devient elle-même intelligible quand on la considère a la lumière de cette tradition dont elle parle. L'œuvre de Heidegger, on peut alors dire, est la tentative de surmonter la tradition occidentale afin d'instaurer un « nouveau commencement » en retournant, par delà la tradition, à son premier commencement, c'est-à-grave;dire à la pensée des présocratiques, la pensée de Parménide et d'Héraclite en particulier.

Just As it is, I believe, a legitimate philosophical enterprise to engage in a “rational reconstruction” of some term or concept in ordinary language, which will, although similar in many ways to the original concept, be a better concept than the original, in that it will, among other things, be free of ambiguities, vagueness and philosophically irrelevant associations of the parent concept, so there is, I believe, a similar enterprise in the history of philosophy. Here, it is legitimate to reconstruct a philosopher's views about some matter the philosopher has written on in such a way as to defend it from certain criticisms so long as the reconstruction remains faithful to the main thrust of the views in question. In particular this is so when the philosopher is acknowledged to be a very great and influential one, and if the criticisms, were they correct, would be inconsistent with the philosopher's acknowledged greatness. The defence of the philosopher from such criticisms is even more legitimate if it can be shown that although the philosopher has written in places in a way that makes the criticism in question seem correct, he has written elsewhere in a way which makes the criticism seem mistaken.

Le Colloque dont ce livre nous fournit les actes fut une initiative du professeur Jerzy A. Wojciechowski (Philosophie, Université d'Ottawa.) Les professeurs Guy Lafrance et William Shea, de la même faculté, faisaient également partie du comite d'organisation; les appuis financiers provinrent du Conseil des Arts du Canada et de l'Université d'Ottawa. Les actes contiennent la totalité des communications rédigées pour l'occasion, y compris celles qui n'ont pas été présentées oralement (entre autres celles de Kedrov, Dobrowolski, Grolier, Hooker, Jolley); on compte 20 articles, de longueurs fort inégales, et cinq commentaires d'articles; vingt contributions sont écrites en anglais, quatre en français, iine en russe (Kedrov.)

I. Ian Hacking asks an intriguing question, and answers it in an interesting way. Why, he asks, does language matter to philosophy? It is a simple question. But his answer is not quite so simple, though its main feature is simple: Language matters to philosophy today for the same reason that ideas were important to philosophy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Each in its time has been the “interface” between the knower and the known. There is much truth to this answer of his, though we may note that it is somewhat incomplete: we would still like to know how ideas then and language now have come to occupy this position.

J'avais Commencé cet article comme un compte-rendu de lecture. II s'est transformé en un débat beaucoup plus large sur la nature de l'analyse philosophique et sur les difficultés que soulève son application à un domaine passablement embrouillé, celui de l'éthique et du droit. Je commencerai done par résumer sommairement l'ouvrage de Georges Legault qui a été le point de départ de mes réflexions.