ABSTRACT
The ties between philosophy and politics, the influences in both directions, vary considerably in both character and significance, according to social and historical circumstances and the type of philosophy concerned. By contrast, the philosophy inspired by the later Wittgenstein among British thinkers of today recognises the classic problems and dilemmas as genuine difficulties, even though it sees them as for the most part provoked by the ineluctable imperfection and ambiguity of language. By contrast, authors are witnessing a profuse flowering of 'ethics', the philosophical preoccupation most characteristic of the British, and perhaps the Scottish even more than the English. It is true that contemporary English ethics often remains firmly cloistered within the bounds of a mere 'logic of moral discourse' – the impassioned analysis of the concepts of norm, rule, obligation, code, license, prohibition, commandment. However, in English philosophy, the linguistic interest, although a matter of method in the first place, does not go beyond the instrumental.
