Attention has been drawn, particularly since Kant, to propositions which can not have negative instances. They used to be called a priori, axioms, first principles. Today, they are usually called postulates—C. I. Lewis uses both the old and new terminology—because there is a growing recognition of the fact that at least some of them are not “necessary” in the traditional sense. Kant placed a limitation on the apriorism of the continental rationalists. Current epistemologists and logicians have outstripped Kant in the (...) direction signalled by him. Both he and they, however, concur in the opinion that apriori propositions are subject to negation of a sort. The Kantian dinge-an-sich, though they can not contradict these propositions by being negative instances of them, do nevertheless stand to them in the relation of insubordination, thereby exerting on them a “negative action” of a sort. And, according to current views, there are instances which, though they fall outside the range of significance of a proposition or system and hence can not contradict it, do nevertheless tend to bring about a revision of it by a negative action of some sort. The purpose of this brief essay is to coin a convenient name for such instances and to describe certain properties of their peculiar negative action. (shrink)

V. C. Chappell; IV*—Stuff and Things, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 71, Issue 1, 1 June 1971, Pages 61–76, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristotelia.

In this paper, I argue that scholars such as John Braithwaite and Lode Walgrave rely on fictions when presenting their utopian vision of restorative justice. Three claims in particular are shown to be fictitious. Proponents of restorative justice maintain, first, that the offender and the victim voluntarily attend the restorative conference. Second, that the restorative conference enables the offender and the victim to take on active responsibility. Third, that the reparatory tasks on which the parties agree should not be understood (...) in terms of the intentional infliction of harm. These fictions, so I argue, are not merely a mistake, but instead serve an important function: the various parties need to believe that they adequately capture the reality of the restorative conference as they are more likely to acquiesce if they believe the fictions to be true. I conclude that the fictions are the driving force within the restorative endeavour. (shrink)

Moral philosophers have often felt the need of a concept which would cover all those cases where we are prevented from achieving our ends through no fault of our own: a criterion for saying when failure is not blameworthy. The deontologists thought we were not to blame for actions done in genuine ignorance of the facts. Kant declared in a famous passage that we were not morally responsible for failures due to the “niggardliness of stepmother nature.” In this article I (...) want to introduce into moral philosophy a new concept for clarifying the failures for which we are not to blame: the notion of scarcity, taken from economic theory. (shrink)

The Essay concerning Human Understanding was published at the end of 1689.1 It sold well, and within three years Locke was planning revisions for a second edition. Among those whose “advice and assistance” he sought was the Irish scientist William Molyneux. Locke had begun a correspondence with Molyneux a few months before, after the latter had lavishly praised the Essay and its author in the Epistle Dedicatory of his own Dioptrica Nova, published early in 1692. Here was a man, Locke (...) concluded, whose judgment one could trust. He returned Molyneux’s compliment in the Essay’s new edition, calling him “that very Ingenious and Studious promoter of real Knowledge, ... whom I am proud to call my friend”. (shrink)

Eleven essays, on a variety of topics, most of them first given as lectures or published in periodicals and Festschriften. This is "late" Heidegger --alternately brilliant and mystifying, provocative and exasperating, at least to the uninitiated. Perhaps the best pieces in the book are the three which discuss passages in pre-Socratic philosophers--here, familiar texts are given fresh, if unorthodox, interpretations, and are made to suggest philosophical conclusions of remarkable subtlety and scope. --V. C. C.