Haig Khatchadourian

ABSTRACT The paper addresses the fundamental issue of the morality of terrorism. It distinguishes four types of terrorism—‘predatory,’‘retaliatory,’‘political’and ‘moralistic’—and argues that in all of them terrorism (in a ‘descriptive,’value‐neutral sense of the word) is always wrong. After a short introductory section the paper considers in some detail the conceptual problem of defining ‘terrorism’. Next it considers the possible application to terrorism, with the necessary modifications, of two main conditions of a ‘just war’; viz. the Principles of Discrimination and of Proportion. It argues that these conditions support the paper's central contention. Additional support is then found in the concept and principles of human rights. In the final section the paper evaluates utilitarian arguments brought forth by Kai Nielsen in Violence and Terrorism: its uses and abuses, in support of so‐called ‘revolutionary terrorism’. Throughout the discussion is illustrated by some actual examples from the recent past.

Truth: Its criteria and conditions is an in-depth critical-and-constructive inquiry in almost equal measure. The theories of the nature of empirical truth critically considered include two forms of the traditional correspondence theory; truth as appraisal; truth as identity of proposition and truth; en emotive theory of truth; P.F. Strawson s performative theory, and N. Rescher s novel theory of a coherentist criterion of truth. The constructive parts include an analysis of the concept of a fact, the meaning and uses of true and false in empirical statements, together with the various sorts of conditions for their correct application; the appraisive/evaluative uses of true and false statements; and the performative-cum-cognitive uses of true empirical statements; and the conditions of the performative uses of true. A significant claim about the concept of truth is its indefinablity; albeit for quite different reasons from Gottlob Frege s reason based on his argument against the correspondence theory of truth."

This article raises some questions about the relevance and value of philosophy at present and suggests some ways in which philosophy can become relevant again. It challenges philosophers to become more actively engaged in the world and to restore Western philosophy's original vision of “love of wisdom,” a value sorely lacking in the present‐day world and abandoned by much of contemporary Western philosophy. The pursuit of wisdom would involve the quest for sound judgment and synoptic insights regarding the ends humankind should strive to realize, including moral visions to help Homo sapiens emerge from the atavistic jungle. It would also involve sound judgment regarding the proper means for the attainment of these desirable ends. For these things to be possible, philosophy would need to draw upon humankind's collective wisdom in philosophy, religion, and myth, and on advances in scientific knowledge, thereby gaining an ever‐deeper understanding of ourselves and of our place in the cosmos.