Scotland has played an immense role in European high culture through the centuries, and among its cultural links none have been greater than those with France. This book shows that the links with France stretch back deep into the Middle Ages, and continue without a break into the 18th century, the Age of Enlightenment.

La compossibilité chez Leibniz est la relation qui répartit les possibles en mondes distincts. Un problème central consiste à comprendre pour quelle raison tous les possibles ne sont pas compossibles, ou ce qui fonde la pluralité des mondes possibles. On examine ici ce problème en confrontant les thèses de Leibniz au réalisme modal de Lewis. Chez ce dernier, l’appartenance à un même monde est définie par l’existence de relations spatiotemporelles, ce qui exclut la possibilité d’univers-îles, ou mondes sans connexion spatiotemporelle (...) et permet de conclure à l’impossibilité qu’un monde contienne la totalité des possibles. L’interprétation cosmologique de la compossibilité attribue une position semblable à Leibniz. Mais cette interprétation exige de tenir l’harmonie expressive pour une caractéristique nécessaire de tous les mondes, ce qui est incompatible avec un certain nombre d’affirmations de Leibniz. (shrink)

Présentation Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz (1890-1963) était un disciple direct de Kazimierz Twardowski, fondateur de l’Ecole de Lvov-Varsovie. Le texte de 1935 a été publié en allemand dans Studia Philosophica I, pp. 1-27 sous le titre « Die syntaktische Konnexität ». C’est l’un des travaux les plus importants de Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz et la théorie du langage en général, et plus particulièrement pour le développement de la linguistique mathématique. Ce texte est aussi considéré comme fondateur pour...

The great Scottish Enlightenment man of letters David Hume offered an account of causation in terms of regularities: repeated pairings of certain kinds of events. Anything more than this, a supposed ‘secret connexion’ binding individual causes and effects, is not something we could ever experience. This, at least, is the view traditionally ascribed to him. Here the account, and its empiricist motivation, is outlined, and a fundamental problem identified: his account of causation is in tension with his account of the (...) way in which we acquire the concept of a distinctive connection between causes and effects. To explain both our experience of causation, and causation's intimate connection with time, we need to appeal to singular causation: the connection between individual events which Hume found so elusive. (shrink)

In this revised and updated edition of The Secret Connexion, Galen Strawson explores one of the most discussed subjects in all philosophy: David Hume's work on causation. Strawson challenges the standard view of Hume, according to which he thinks that there is no such thing as causal influence, and that there is nothing more to causation than things of one kind regularly following things things of another kind. He argues that Hume does believe in causal influence, but insists that we (...) cannot know its nature. The regularity theory of causation is indefensible, and Hume never adopted it in any case. (shrink)

This lucid book is the first to be wholly dedicated to Hume's theory of personal identity, and presents a bold new interpretation which bears directly on ...

Hume's conception of causation and induction is discussed in the context where the causal evolution is represented by the motion of a free particle in space. The difference between classical and relativistic mechanics is shown to be significant for the discussion.

It is widely supposed that David Hume invented and espoused the "regularity" theory of causation, holding that causal relations are nothing but a matter of one type of thing being regularly followed by another. It is also widely supposed that he was not only right about this, but that it was one of his greatest contributions to philosophy. Strawson here argues that the regularity theory of causation is indefensible, and that Hume never adopted it in any case. Strawson maintains that (...) Hume did not claim that causation in the natural world is just a matter of regular succession, that such a dogmatic metaphysical claim about the nature of reality would have been utterly contrary to his fundamental philosophical principles, and that he rightly took it for granted that there was more to causation than regularity of succession, claiming only that regularity of succession was all that we could ever know of causation. (shrink)

That the export of Scottish engineers and engineering teachers to Japan in the 1870s aided that country's astonishingly rapid process of modernization from a feudal to a capitalist, industrialized society will not occasion surprise or dissent. As the Japan weekly mail editorialized in 1878: In no direction has Japan symbolised her advance towards assimilation of the civilisation of the Western world more emphatically than in that of applied science.

Presenting significant new research on the moral and religious philosophy of David Hume, this volume illustrates the importance of intellectual context in understanding the work and career of one of the most important thinkers of the eighteenth century. Distinctive in its reappraisal of the influence of John Locke, Francis Hutcheson, and others, it examines how Hume reacted to, and in turn affected, other thinkers whose views, like his own, were bound up with specific philosophical, theological, and scientific traditions and commitments. (...) This volume also publishes for the first time in facsimile form the newly discovered fragment on evil. (shrink)

I advance what might be thought a paradoxical thesis: that the central topic of Hume’s long discussions “Of the Idea of Necessary Connexion” is not, in fact, the idea of necessary connexion. However it is not as paradoxical as it first appears, for I shall claim that the “idea” whose origin Hume seeks is, in a sense, an idea-type of which the specific idea of necessary connexion is but one instance. Various lines of evidence support this claim, but my main (...) argument will rest on its ability to solve four puzzles in Hume’s text, which are otherwise hard to explain away. These are: (S) the synonymy puzzle, posed by Hume’s apparently reckless assertion that “efficacy”, “agency”, “power”, “force”, “energy”, “necessity”, “connexion”, and “productive quality” are all virtual synonyms; (C) the complexity puzzle, that Hume seems to ignore the possibility that his target idea might be complex rather than simple; (V) the vulgar problem, which arises from Hume’s acknowledgement that the vulgar believe in “chancy” causes, even though he takes the very concept of causation to involve necessity; and (P) the probability problem, of how an allegedly simply idea whose central core involves inexorable necessity could possibly provide a basis for probability. The paper ends by drawing further support from an analysis of Hume’s two sections “Of the idea of necessary connexion”, showing that his use of the various relevant terms makes good sense on the thesis proposed, thus corroborating the arguments presented. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉ Ce texte porte sur l'élaboration des politiques publiques à partir d'une perspective conséquentialiste basée sur les probabilités. En utilisant l'exemple de la dissuasion par la menace nucléaire, je montre que ceux qui sont véritablement dévoués à la protection de l'environnement, ceux qui se soucient véritablement du problème de l'environnement devraient refuser le conséquentialisme basé sur les probabilités sans le principe de la reconsideration, un principe que nous proposons ici pour la première fois, le principe de la reconsideration doit être (...) adopté parce que, sans lui, le conséquentialisme basé sur les probabilités pourrait justifier qu'on poursuive l'application de politiques même lorsque celles-ci se sont révélées inadéquates, et même lorsqu'elles minent elles-mêmes leurs chances de succès. On peut ainsi conclure que le principe de la reconsidération est nécessaire pour assurer le lien entre les politiques justificatrices et leur succès. ABSTRACT This paper examines the making of public policy from a probability-based consequentialist perspective. Using nuclear deterrence policies as an example, I show that those truly committed environmental protection, those who truly care about the environment should not accept probability-based consequentialism without the reconsideration principle, a principle introduced in this paper. The reconsideration principle must be accepted, because without it, probability-based consequentialism can justify continuing to act on policies even when they have failed, and even when they undermine their original goal altogether. Thus, we conclude that the reconsideration principle is neeaed to insure connection between the justification policies and their success. (shrink)

Originally published in 1904, this book examines the connection between two of Plato's most famous theories, the Theory of Ideas and the Theory of the Immortality of the Soul, and assesses the development of Plato's thinking concerning the nature of the soul and its connection to the body. Gaye looks at pre-Platonic views on immortality and the place of immortality in Plato's overall philosophical structure. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Platonic philosophy.

Ever since Wesley Salmon’s theory, the mechanical approach to causality has found an increasing number of supporters who have developed it in different directions. Mechanical views such as those advanced by Stuart Glennan, Jim Bogen and Peter Machamer, Lindley Darden and Carl Craver have met with broad consensus in recent years. This paper analyses the main features of these mechanical positions and some of the major problems they still face, referring to the latest debate on mechanisms, causal explanation and the (...) relationship between mechanisms and counterfactuals. I shall claim that the mechanical approach can be recognised as having a fundamental explanatory power, whereas the counterfactual approach, recently developed mainly by Jim Woodward and essentially linked to the notion of intervention, has an important heuristic role. Claiming that mechanisms are by no means to be seen as parasitic on counterfactuals or less fundamental than them – as it has been recently suggested –, and that yet counterfactuals can play a part in a conceptual analysis of causation, I shall look for hints in support of the peaceful coexistence of the two. (shrink)

Il s’agit de mettre en évidence la manière dont Lucien Lévy-Bruhl a permis, et permet encore, de penser la fécondité d’une connexion entre philosophie et ethnologie. À la croisée d’une exigence positiviste dans l’appréhension des faits et du spiritualisme français du xix e siècle, sa réflexion sur la mentalité primitive rend possible la constitution d’une « métaphysique sauvage ». Celle-ci se défie d’une pensée limitée par les cadres de l’expérience, lesquels interdisent traditionnellement de dépasser les conditions de possibilité de la (...) connaissance objective. La mentalité primitive possède en effet ceci de commun avec la métaphysique spiritualiste qu’elle permet de penser une appréhension directe de l’être. L’actualité de la recherche entre alors en résonance avec la démarche de Lévy-Bruhl, au sens où philosophie et ethnologie, de par leur connexion, peuvent réciproquement intensifier leurs possibilités. (shrink)

Les traités Physique et Métaphysique d’Aristote exposent la thèse de Parménide selon deux approches différentes, voire contradictoires. Je soutiens que Parménide est, dans le premier, présenté en partisan de l’immutabilité, tandis que dans le second il est présenté comme tenant du relativisme. Cette différence répond dialectiquement aux fins de la discussion de chaque traité. Je soutiens que la thèse du monisme, à savoir ‘‘toutes les choses sont une’’, comprise, d’une part, d’un point de vue ontologique et, d’autre part, d’un point (...) de vue épistémologique permet à Aristote de brosser des images assez distinctes de Parménide. (shrink)