Transcendental Tense: J.R. Lucas

Mellor's argument from Kant fails. The difficulties in his first Antinomy are due to topological confusions, not the tensed nature of time. Nor are McTaggart's difficulties due to the tensed nature of time. The ego-centricity of tensed discourse is an essential feature of communication between selves, each of whom refers himself as 'I', and is required for talking about time as well as experience and agency.
Arguments based on the Special Theory are misconceived. Some rest on a confused notion of 'topological simultaneity'. In the General Theory a cosmic time is defined, as also in quantum mechanics, where a natural present is defined by a unique hyperplane of collapse into eigen -ness.     

Luck And Equality: Richard J. Arneson

Does it make sense to hold that, if it is bad that some people are worse off than others, it is worse if those who are worse off come to be so through sheer bad luck that it is beyond their power to control? In her contribution to this symposium, Susan Hurley cautions against a closely related fallacy: from the fact that people have come to an unequal condition through unchosen bad luck, it does not follow that, if we aim to undo the influence of unchosen luck, we ought to institute equality of condition. Forswearing the fallacy that Hurley analyses is compatible with answering the question affirmatively, and more generally with holding that principles of distributive justice should be sensitive to the distinction between chosen and unchosen bad luck. This essay explores how this might be done.     

Cogitations [1986]: In Language We Trust: J. J. Katz's Anatomy of the Cartesian Cogito

Book reviewed:
Jerrold J. Katz, Cogitations: A Study of the Cogito in Relation to the Philosophy of Language and a Study of It in Relation to the Cogito     

民主的危机与合法性的重建--哈贝马斯对民主的思考

引言随着冷战时代的终结,自由主义在全球范围内获得了压倒性胜利,但国际间的冲突和西方国家内部存在的种种危机并未因此得以消弭,反而更加引人注目了。几乎在福山抛出颇为乐观的“历史终结论”的同时,亨廷顿的“文明冲突论”即尾随而至,给后冷战时代的国际关系蒙上了一层阴影。就西方自由主义国家的民主实践而言,盛行于上个世纪60年代风起云涌的激进民主浪潮挑战了自由主义对民主的规范理解,也显示了西方国家政治系统的危机,这刺激了西方思想家对民主问题的深层思考。在《公民与国家之间的距离》一文中,查尔斯·泰勒忧虑当代西方民主国家的…