In this paper I will combat the claim that concrete matter can exist independently of objecthood. This view is a denial of the Aristotelian principles that only particular objects (primary substances) exist apart (independently), and that as a condition of concreteness, matter must have acquired form. For, it propounds that matter can be concrete and general.

A distinction is drawn in “Matter and Objecthood” (henceforth MO) between two analyses of the status of matter vis-à-vis structured objects—between what is presented as a straightforward “two-level” analysis, and a putatively “deeper”, more dubious “three-level” analysis which the author believes to be posited by “Some Questions of Ontology” (henceforth SQO). It is at this “third level” (whatever it might be) that the dubious category of the “concrete non-particular” is said to be located.

Le ressurgissement de la notion de droits de l'homme, à la faveur notamment du printemps polonais de 1980, restera sans doute l'un des traits les plus marquants de la décennie qui s'achève. L'on pourrait trouver son équivalent proprement philosophique dans l'audience croissante qu'ont su trouver des penseurs tels que Jürgen Habermas et K. O. Apel pour leur projet d'élaboration d'une nouvelle morale universaliste, à partir des principes de l'éthique kantienne. En effet, tant les droits de l'homme que ces théories morales inspirées de Kant ont en commun une même exigence d'universalité qui les voue à un niveau élevé d'abstraction, obtenu en libérant les principes invoqués de la réalité substantielle dont ils sont issus et sur laquelle ils ont, en définitive, à s'exercer. C'est ce qui fait de ces droits une politique de la déclaration et de ces théories morales une éthique du discours.

In outline, at least, the major argument of David Gauthier's, Morals By Agreement is quite clear: it is rational to acquire a disposition to moral behaviour with those similarly disposed because having it gives one the highest practically attainable utility in interactions with them. Once one has acquired such a disposition, a disposition which constrains one's individual maximization of the satisfaction of one's preferences (i.e., a Constrained Maximizer or “CM” disposition), it is rational to act morally towards similar agents. He thus takes himself to have constructed from instrumental rationality alone, a justification of voluntary compliance with moral principles. He appears to have shown that it is instrumentally rational for free and uncoerced agents to perform moral actions.

David Gauthier's recent and elegant Morals by Agreement sets itself the task of deriving morality from the non-moral premises of the theory of rational choice. Gauthier uses the device of a social contract to demonstrate the rational basis of a morality emphasizing rights against force and fraud, private property and the keeping of contracts. Gauthier's social contract is supposed to demonstrate the basis of a morality that is both categorical and enforceable. If his argument is successful, it will demonstrate both the demands that morality may rightly make on each of us, and the moral demands that we may rightly hold each other to.

R. G. Collingwood's re-enactment doctrine has been widely discussed in recent years by his commentators. However, most philosophers who discuss the re-enactment doctrine touch only briefly on his view of the identity of thoughts. This is surprising because Collingwood claims that the historian's successful re-enactment of the thought behind the historical agent's action involves re-thinking the same thought as the agent and not merely a copy of his thought.

In constructing the concept of truth I believe to be implicit in Sartre's philosophy, I shall inevitably make glancing contact with differences between his and Descartes' understanding of the cogito—their common foundational truth. This family quarrel will, however, remain peripheral to my discussion of what I take to be the core claim of any cogito-argument: that my existence is certain insofar as it results from my thinking. Beyond that, nothing is certain about what Descartes meant by the certainty of the cogito, or about what could reasonably be meant by it. His express inconsistencies in characterizing the (now inferential, now intuitive, even performative) force of his cogito-argument are well known, as are the various incompatible, textually more or less defensible, construals of generations of his interpreters. Unsurprisingly, then, the problem of truth for those of his followers, including Sartre, who have not been content to accept cogito, ergo sum as an unanalyzable datum, has tended to centre on proposing more intellectually transparent readings of their ancestor's seemingly inscrutable ergo.

Canadian philosopher Rupert C. Lodge (1886–1961) developed a pluralistic or “comparative philosophy” in which he adopted what I shall call the polycentric perspective. The polycentric perspective recognizes that since philosophical discourse, indeed all discourse, is necessarily linear, “of only one dimension”, it follows that no one metaphysical system, no one philosophical perspective, can ever be considered adequate on its own. In this paper I argue that the philosophy of pluralism, the adoption of the polycentric perspective by Lodge and other early Canadian philosophers, can and does serve as an adequate answer and intriguing alternative to Richard Rorty's challenge to Speculative Philosophy in The Consequences of Pragmatism and Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature.

I am pleased to participate in this joint Critical Notice, in part because it is an opportunity to pay a debt of gratitude. Thirteen years ago, as a Toronto undergraduate with interests in things like Hegelian metaphysics, I enrolled in an ethics seminar with Wayne Sumner. I had not done any ethics before, and took this course largely because I thought I ought to. But it turned out to be the best course of my undergraduate career, and permanently changed my philosophical interests. Having learned what I did in the seminar I have been doing ethics ever since—so, thank you, Wayne.

It is commonplace to criticize utilitarianism on the ground that it does not take moral rights seriously; that it cannot account for the rights we have, and for their role in constraining our pursuit of the overall good. Wayne Sumner does not directly address this criticism in The Moral Foundation of Rights. Instead he attempts to show that consequentialism can defeat nihilism about rights: the view that there are no moral rights at all.

I am deeply indebted to Tom Hurka and David Copp for the careful attention they have given to some of the central motifs in The Moral Foundation of Rights. By doing their job so well they have simplified mine considerably. Their exposition of my views is a model of fairness and accuracy; I need therefore waste no time disclaiming attributions or complaining about misrepresentation. Furthermore, they have shown admirable resolve in choosing to ignore the book's relatively peripheral concerns, even when these would have made easy targets. By adopting this policy of restraint they have helped to illuminate issues which, it seems to me, run to the very heart of moral/political theory.

La recherche héraclitéenne vient de s'enrichir d'une nouvelle édition, accompagnée d'une traduction et d'un commentaire des Fragments d'Héraclite. M. Conche annonce lui-même son entreprise en ces mots: «La présente édition des Fragments de son oeuvre perdue vise, en conjuguant l'étude philologique et l'analyse philosophique, à restituer, autant que cela est possible, la pensée même d'Héraclite, dans son unité et sa cohérence».