Book Description

Excerpt from Present Philosophical Tendencies a Critical Survey of Naturalism, Idealism Pragmatism and Realism, Together With a Synopsis of the Philosophy of William James, 1921 To avoid any misunderstanding as to the scope of the present book, let me say at the outset that with the exception of the Appendix, it is a critique, rather than a history. I have attempted not merely to summarize, but to estimate, present philosophical tendencies; and my criticism is throughout based on the realistic philosophy which I set forth constructively only at the end. Since my method has been critical rather than expository' I shall doubtless be charged with having committed the error personae, with having attributed to certain writers views which they would not recognize as their own. Be this as it may, I have in any case formulated the views which I have criticised, so that the merits of the question may always be in the foreground of study. I have assumed it to be more important to discover whether certain current views were true or false than to discuss with painstaking nicety the question of their attribution. Furthermore, I realize that I have given to the several tendencies which I have discussed the relative emphasis which is characteristic of Anglo-American thought. This appears in the importance which I have attached to the blend of "critical" or Kantian, with metaphysical or Hegelian motives in idealism; in my identification of realism with the "new" or non-dualistic realism; and in the prominence which I have given both to realism and to pragmatism. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.