My main topic will be, roughly speaking, the claim that mental events or conscious experiences or inner experiences are brain processes. I hasten to say, however, that I am not going to talk about “mental events” or “conscious experiences” or “inner experiences.” These expressions are almost exclusively philosophers terms, and I am not sure that I have got the hang of any of them. Philosophers are not in agreement in their use of these terms. One philosopher will say, for example, that a pain in the foot is a mental event, whereas another will say that a pain in the foot certainly is not a mental event.

L'importance du philosophe dans la cité a toujours été reconnue sous une forme ou sous une autre. Quand Athénes par exemple, condamne Socrate á boire la cigüe, ses juges veulent prémunir le corps social contre les effets de l'esprit critique du philosophe. On s'entend par ailleurs á proclamer que Rousseau et Hégel sont les péres du monde moderne et saint Augustin celui de la civilisation chrétienne médiévale. Qui nierait que des philosophes comme Kierkegaard, Marx et Nietzsche ont marqué profondement notre siecle. Enfin, une enquête de l'Unesco faite récemment (1951) souligne en ces termes l'importance que cet organisme international attache à l'enseignement de la philosophie: «La place toute particulière qui est faite par cette enquête à l'enseignement de la philosophie s'explique par le rôle que jouent les idées philosophiques dans la conduite et l'opinion des hommes… Le développement des idées philosophiques a eu dans l'histoire et a encore aujourd'hui une grande importance — que ce soit directement ou indirectement — pour l'institution de la démocratic, pour le renforcement des droits de l'homme et pour la sauvegarde de la paix.»

In the following pages I should like critically to consider certain aspects of John Dewey's thought as set forth for the most part in Experience and Nature. In particular, I should like to discuss the conceptions of being and of philosophieal reflection which underlie his delineation of human agency as located in nature and as essentially characterized by reference to the problematic. I select these ideas both because they concern something fundamental philosophieally and because one can see in Dewey's development of them both the strength and weakness of his philosophieal reflection.

There are three kinds of aesthetical theory in which it would have to be admitted that the intentions of the artist are of almost no significance.

One of the most powerful weapons which recent writers have managed to direct against the view that ‘thought’ is a process that can be validly distinguished from its expression or articulation in language is the well-known infinite regress argument. The argument itself has had a very long and fruitful career and has proven to be highly adaptable. I believe, however, that its application in this context is illegitimate and contains a serious error.

R.M. Hare's new book, Freedom and Reason, is a welcome contribution to modern moral philosophy and should be read with care by anyone who believes that ethics should be relevant to the moral life, and that reason should have a substantial role to play in that life. Freedom and Reason, though not simply a sequel to Hare's earlier work, The Language of Morals, should be read with the earlier work in mind. This is important, not only because it presupposes some of the conclusions of that work, but also because of the strong criticism which the earlier work provoked, and which Freedom and Reason to a large extent answers.