La réflexion philosophique sur le phénomène de la contrainte a été fortement marquée par l'analyse qu'en ont donné Aristote et saint Thomas. Cette analyse classique établit un critère très général de la contrainte mais n'aborde pas des questions plus spécifiques, telles que la distinction entre une tentative de contrainte et un avertissement ou la différence entre une offre et une tentative de contrainte. Ces distinctions, qui sont loin d'être évidentes (pour autant que I'on creuse quelque peu le sujet), présentent un intérêt non négligeable pour quiconque est amené à réfléchir sur des matières impliquant les relations humaines, tel le philosophe moral, le théoricien du droit, le sociologue ou l'économiste. Par exemple, peut-on dire que l'administration des contributions exerce une contrainte sur les contribuables en leur envoyant leur note d'imposition comportant un avertissement de payer dans les dix jours qui suivent la reception? Le détenteur d'un monopole — une société de distribution d'eau par exemple — contraint-il ses clients lorsqu'il augmente ses prix ou bien ne fait-il que changer les termes de son offre? Ce genre de questions ne peut pas recevoir de réponse dans l'analyse classique vu le niveau trap général de celle-ci.

The question “What makes a group of simultaneous experiences the experiences of a single person?” has been nearly ignored in the philosophical literature for the past few decades. The most common answer (e.g., Parfit 1984) to this much neglected question is “Two simultaneous experiences belong to a single person if there is a common consciousness or awareness of them.” However, consciousness and awareness are difficult concepts to analyze, so that little of substance has been said of the answer. Recently, Oaklander has argued that the awareness answer is deficient for a different reason, claiming that it fails because “it ultimately rests on an analysis of the unity of consciousness that is itself circular or otherwise inadequate” Oaklander 1987, p. 525). Oaklander's criticism is especially interesting because, according to it, the awareness account of synchronic personal identity falls prey to the main problem facing the memory (or psychological connectedness) account of diachronic identity, namely the problem of branching. In this paper, I shall argue that there is no important symmetry. Whatever its other flaws may be, the awareness account is immune to the branching problem; its immunity is due to formal differences between synchronic and diachronic identity.

That Wittgenstein in the Tractatus likens logic to geometry has been noticed; however, the extent and force of the analogy he develops between logical form and a broadly Kantian account of geometry has not been sufficiently appreciated. In this paper, I trace Wittgenstein's analogy in detail by looking closely at the relevant texts. I then suggest that we regard the fact that Wittgenstein develops his account of logical form by analogy with a Kantian account of geometry as evidence for the bold thesis that Wittgenstein belongs within a Kantian epistemological tradition. Finally, I supply two small pieces of the interpretive puzzle needed to support the larger thesis: first, evidence that Wittgenstein's concern with logical form involves a crucial epistemological component; second, a sketch of how Wittgenstein's account of logical and mathematical knowledge can be viewed as continuing a Kantian tradition.

Jack Hack is a programmer responsible for writing portions of a popular commercial word-processing program. Hack has included the following harmless but insulting “bomb” in the program's input subroutine.

Le dialogue entre Sartre et Aron a commencé lorsqu'ils étaient tous les deux à l'École normale superiéure dans les années 1920, et a continué, d'une manière souvent indirecte et intermittente, jusqu'à la parution du livre d'Aron, Histoire et dialectique de la violence, qui est une analyse de la Critique de la raison dialectique de Sartre.

In default of astounding findings — Lampe penned much of the critical corpus — it is likely that continued Kantian exegesis will perforce be featured by more pain for less gain. And since philosophical events must in many respects overtake even so monumental a figure as Kant, does not the treatment of Kantian documents in current terms court anachronism? In a fashion which encourages such musings, the contents of this handsomely produced collection of essays, the proceedings of a 1987 conference at Stanford, deviate from straight exegesis. The contributors include prominent commentators on Kant: Lewis White Beck, Paul Guyer, Jules Vuillemin. A number — P. F. Strawson, John Rawls, Stuart Hampshire — are original philosophers of high calibre. Given the divergent pressures of textual fidelity, of novelty, and of philosophicality, the interaction challenges us to consider the prospects. An especially illuminating portion of the discussion in this regard brings together Dieter Henrich, Guyer, and Strawson.

Moral philosophers continue to divide on the conundrum of Marx and morality — how a ferocious moral critic of nineteenth-century capitalism could also denounce morality as an ideological snare and delusion. In Marxism and the Moral Point of View, Kai Nielsen brings together many years of thought on both terms of the question, rightly seeking a balance between Marx's moralism and Marx's anti-moralism.

According to the jacket cover, John Leslie's Universes is “the first book by a philosopher on these controversial affairs.” Sadly, I must report, the controversy has gotten the better of his philosophy. Leslie's contribution to this area is merely to see, within the dispute, a narrow window through which to promote his own curious view of extreme axiarchism. This alone would not disturb me, were it not for the apparent disdain with which Leslie depicts views opposed to his own, and his infuriating technique of responding to those critics who fail to see the point of his tremendously contrived examples by dogmatically waving these same examples.