The sequence from ideal state to tyran I ny contained in Books VIII-IX of the Republic constitutes neither history nor philosophy of history, but rather completes Plato's overall theory of politics, dealing, like every theoretical science, with simplified or pure cases, and narrated purely for dramatic effort. Popper's view that Plato was fundamentally an historicist is incorrect. Plato makes no straightforward comments on philosophy of history. Perhaps, like many Greeks, he surveyed history pessimistically, but he did not propound an iron (...) law of decay. As a social scientist Plato held that there are laws of political change without supposing the course of history is unalterably fixed. (shrink)

Philosophy of history is not a subject which has hitherto attracted much attention in this country. Preoccupation with the methods and achievements of the natural sciences, and distaste for the sort of rationale of history as a whole which Hegel and others offered under the title in the early nineteenth century, have served to make most British philosophers accord its problems only the most casual recognition. It is therefore all the more interesting to find an English writer of unusual powers (...) both of argument and expression, who was himself an historian of distinction in his special field, devoting a large part of his philosophical thinking to the problems of historical knowledge and their wider implications. Unfortunately, R. G. Collingwood was not able to begin the major work on philosophy of history, to writing which, as we are told in the introduction to the present book, he had looked forward for twenty-five years, until his powers were seriously affected by bad health, and he did not live to complete it. But though the full results of his thinking on the subject are lost, we are now able, thanks to the skilful work of his friend Professor T. M. Knox, to study what is in effect an extensive interim report on it. Professor Knox has produced The Idea of History largely on the basis of lectures which Collingwood prepared in 1936, supplemented by two essays already published which date from the same period and a certain amount of material from the unfinished Principles of History written in 1939. (shrink)

Even though for Hegel the historian rethinks, positions not as past but as necessary stages in his own philosophical development, the history of philosophy remains external to philosophy proper since a genius could work out from the beginning the stages in the Idea's progress. Hegel's critical history allocates space according to philosophical, not historical considerations, saying little about historical contexts. Non-Hegelians also emphasize assessment more than narration, and all historians of the arts and sciences must make judgments of both importance (...) and value. The history of philosophy, however, has become more historical; assessment requires understanding a philosopher's meaning through his historical situation. (shrink)

Hume's explicit pronouncements about truth are few and unenlightening. In a well-known passage near the beginning of Book III of the Treatise he writes that ‘Reason is the discovery of truth or falsehood. Truth or falsehood consists in an agreement or disagreement either to the real relations of ideas, or to real existence and matter of fact.’ Hume's main concern in this passage, however, is not with the concept of truth, but with his thesis that moral distinctions are not derived (...) from reason: he introduces his reference to truth only with a view to showing that our ‘passions, volitions and actions … being original facts and realities, complete in themselves,’ are not susceptible of the agreement and disagreement spoken of, and therefore cannot be said to be true or false, in conformity with or contrary to reason. The account of truth given here is not elaborated, and perhaps not even thought to need elaboration. Similarly with another passage a few pages earlier in which Hume says that ‘Truth is of two kinds, consisting either in the discovery of the proportions of ideas, considered as such, or in the conformity of our ideas of objects to their real existence’. Here again his interest is not in truth itself but in ‘curiosity, or the love of truth,’ the passion which, Hume says, ‘was the first source of all our inquiries’. Hume seems to take it for granted that nothing more needs to be said about what it is to discover ‘the proportions of ideas, considered as such,’ or about the circumstances in which we can speak of there being ‘conformity’ or the lack of it between our ideas of objects and their real existence. So far as he is concerned the central point to grasp is the distinction between propositions which have to do with relations of ideas and those which express, or purport to express, matters of fact. Once this distinction is clear, the nature of truth is supposed to be plain. (shrink)

The question I want to discuss is that of the sense and respects in which morality is strictly a matter for the individual. To hear some people talk you would think that it is wholly so. Not only do I have to make my own moral decisions; I have in a way to make them on my own terms, in so far as the rules I take to govern my actions are rules I have freely accepted, or at the least (...) not positively repudiated. In law I can be bound by statutes which I regard as abhorrent or even of whose content I am ignorant ; that a similar situation should obtain in morals is commonly treated as absurd. If I see nothing wrong with a certain practice, such as premarital sex or drug-taking, I can’t be brought morally to book for indulging in it. Morals is not solely a matter of personal taste, for the nature of moral judgment is such that the moral agent legislates not just for himself but for all who are similarly situated; equally, however, it is not something which can be externally enforced. There are no objective moral principles, plain for all to see, against which to measure moral error, and though there is fairly widespread agreement among the respectable that some forms of conduct are morally admirable and others morally deplorable, we are under no obligation to respect these “conventions.” A man’s only true obligation here is to follow his conscience and thus do what he takes to be right, in the light of the best information about the situation he can get. (shrink)

In his recently published book, The Nature of Physical Reality, Professor Margenau develops a conception of physical reality, which, on the one hand, is a repudiation of radical empiricism and which, on the other hand, is a denial of realism. Margenau believes that he has accomplished his task by means of “constructs” which, in “a large area of discourse,” are “wholly synonymous” with concepts and which, nevertheless, when verified, are “the external objects”.

This book, Volume 21 of the Synthese Historical Library, is one of the more important publications in recent years pertaining to Kant’s philosophy. It deals specifically with Kant’s precritical writings, his disavowal of the Leibnizian conception of space and the emergence of Kant’s own epistemological position. Miss Buroker develops her arguments forcefully, clearly, and with a philosophical sensitivity that is quite exceptional.