This article concentrates on 1890 land-grant colleges' and universities' contributions to rural development in 16 southern and border states. The author contends that lifting rural dwellens out of ignorance and poverty has been a major objective of 1890 institutions. During the early years the 1890s sent out change-agents to encourage rural dwellers to improve their standard of living through education and self-help programs. These agents went into rural communities and taught farm families to raise better crops and livestock; improve their (...) homes, schools, and community life; and despite inadequate funding of teaching, research, and extension at these schools, the 1890 schools made significant contributions to rural development. Moreover, the writer contends that the 1890 schools are not outmoded, but essential to rural development and to the education of American citizens during the rest of the 1990s and into the 21st century. (shrink)

I. We have been warned by Professor H. L. A. Hart not to think of the word ‘justice’ as an all-encompassing moral word, and, so far as it goes, the warning is surely one we should heed. But “justice” is a concept so complex as to make the warning necessary. I do not intend my remarks as countering Hart's claim, but they thrust in a different direction. They are aimed at the fact that our concept of justice permeates and conditions (...) our use of a wide variety of other concepts such as freedom, equality and happiness. It is a common practice, among those who seek to elucidate the concept of justice, to appeal to these other concepts in an unanalyzed way. Thus, John Rawls, in formulating his now famous “two principles,” which are offered as an elucidation of one sense of justice, assumes that we understand such notions as maximum liberty and equality of opportunity before the concept of justice has itself been clarified. Few in recent decades have done more than Rawls to enrich the philosophical literature on justice, but I want to suggest that some very misleading inferences might be drawn from this opening gambit. (shrink)

Philosophers have often bluntly said, and more often tacitly assumed that careful and reasonable men will confine themselves to two very rigid ways of talking. Vile must either show that what we say is a theorem deducible from assumed axioms and postulates, or we must show that what we say is made probable by evidence. This book is at heart an attack upon the idea that rationality requires any such straitjacket, and it repudiates the dichotomy between "analytic" philosophy and philosophy (...) "in the grand tradition." Rationality is here conceived as a subtle and complex temper of deciding, most needed precisely where what we have to say cannot be stuffed into the two narrow pigeonholes in question. Originally published in 1957. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

Philosophers have often bluntly said, and more often tacitly assumed that careful and reasonable men will confine themselves to two very rigid ways of talking. Vile must either show that what we say is a theorem deducible from assumed axioms and postulates, or we must show that what we say is made probable by evidence. This book is at heart an attack upon the idea that rationality requires any such straitjacket, and it repudiates the dichotomy between "analytic" philosophy and philosophy (...) “in the grand tradition.” Rationality is here conceived as a subtle and complex temper of deciding, most needed precisely where what we have to say cannot be stuffed into the two narrow pigeonholes in question. Originally published in 1957. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)