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This essay examines critically two related claims: first, that postmodernism and philosophy of science depend on each other in a manner similar to the Enlightenment and Romanticism, that is, they respond and dispute each other's claims; and second, that what underlies and emanates from both postmodernism and philosophy of science is a political perspective and commitment. These claims suggest not only the possibility of translating from one area to the other when they are critically engaged with each other but also the potential for using both areas simultaneously to transform and possibly improve the human condition. By emphasizing the similarities between science/philosophy of science and postmodernism the essay explores the ways in which these two enterprises or groups of people can learn from one another and benefit from each other's insight.

Hegel's main problem derived from reflection on the tradition since Descartes in which the problems of the search for certain knowledge and the relation of mind to matter were dominant. If the question is pressed further even into extraphilosophical problems there can be detected a desire to demonstrate the realm of something personal, the presence of and communication with others, thus demonstrating the unreality of isolation, loneliness, and depression, the solipsism that is the philosopher's ultimate belief.

The nineteenth-century appraisal of Whewell's philosophy as confused, eclectic, and metaphysical is still dominant today. Yet he keeps reappearing on the agenda of the historians and philosophers of science. Why? Whewell continues to be a puzzle. Historians evade the puzzle by deeming him to have had no serious philosophy but some interesting ideas and/or to have been socially important. Menachim Fisch's recent study offers promise of a new appraisal. But Fisch's account leads back to the puzzle. Fisch poses the question well, promises a new answer, but does not provide one. The puzzle will remain until the strength of Whewell's turn away from empiricist problems to Kantian ones has been appreciated.

Popper's short essay about the rationality principle has been the target of many criticisms which have raised serious doubts about its consistency. How could the well-known promoter of falsificationism suggest that we not reject a principle that he himself describes as false? Nonetheless, the essay can be read in a way that makes it appear much more consistent. Better sense can be made of Popper's own examples (the flustered driver, the pedestrian, etc.), by taking seriously his view that the rationality principle might be "approximately true" and falsified only in very rare cases, while also giving proper attention to his four rather elliptical arguments.

This article critically examines the 1992 decision by the Supreme Court of Canada on pornography (Butler v. the Queen). The decision, like the LEAF (Legal Education Action Fund), argues that the dehumanizing and degrading images of women in pornography undermine the achievement of gender equality and reinforce existing inequality. Section 15 of Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms takes precedence over Section 2(b) freedom of expression. More immediately, Section 163(8) of the Criminal Code of Canada remains the primary instrument for dealing with pornography. These arguments fail to distinguish between degradation and devaluation; they offer no evidence of a connection between pornography and its effects on gender stratification, nor do they feel obliged to offer such evidence despite the extensive literature on inequality by the social science community. Citing the Sears-Roebuck case on gender discrimination, the author demonstrates that the enemy of gender equality is the stereotype of the idealized traditional woman, not the one-dimensional lust-driven nymphomaniac of pornography. Her opposite is not the "stud" of pornography who is in a constant state of tumescence but "economic man" who sublimates his sexual passion in sports, cars, politics, and money. Censorship, it is suggested, infantilizes women and contributes to their dependency. The article comments on the doctrine of "balancing" rights and on the meaning of "equality" within a feminist context. The larger questions of a trend toward the legalization of cultural issues and the role of the judiciary (weak in European democracies but strong in the American tradition) are raised.

This essay identifies two different methodological strategies used by the proponents of anarchism. In what is termed the "ontological" approach, the rationale for anarchism depends on a particular representation of human nature. That characterization of "being" determines the relation between the individual and the structures of social life. In the alternative approach, the epistemological status of "representation" is challenged, leaving human subjects without stable identities. Without the possibility of stable human representations, the foundations underlying the exercise of institutional power can be challenged. This epistemological discussion is traced from Max Stirner to the twentieth-century movement known as poststructuralism.