Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub
[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][graphic][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

COPYRIGHT, 1924, BY BENJAMIN RAND

COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY BENJAMIN RAND

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Riverside Press

CAMBRIDGE. MASSACHUSETTS

PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

[ocr errors]

Wahr

10-7-29

248172-2

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

THE purpose of the new and enlarged edition of The Modern Classical Philosophers is to bring down the survey in this work of the more important philosophical systems to the present time. Chapters have therefore been added in it from the writings of six of the foremost philosophers since Spencer. These include Lotze, Renouvier, Bradley, Royce, James and Bergson.

Lotze's teleological idealism is presented by selections from his "Microcosmus," which set forth the presence of an infinite being immanent in all things as necessary to give universal laws to nature. From the "Essays of General Criticism" of Renouvier, the founder of French neo-criticism, those parts have been translated for the first time which give his general analysis of knowledge, the fundamental law of relation, and the cardinal doctrine of certitude. There is reproduced from Bradley's "Appearance and Reality" the constructive statement of his philosophy, wherein the absolute is described as the unity in which all appearances are transmuted with varying degrees of truth and reality. In a chapter from Royce's "Spirit of Modern Philosophy" an eloquent expression of his idealism is given, in which truth and error alike presuppose our inclusion in a larger self or Logos. James, the brilliant expounder of the pragmatic doctrine first suggested by Charles Peirce, tells in a chapter from his "Pragmatism," what pragmatism means. From Bergson's "Creative Evolution" selections have been made which present the original impetus of life, the evolutionary process, and the meaning of evolution.

The names of the publishers to whom is due the courtesy to reprint these additional selections will be found, as those of the first edition, at the beginning of the respective chapters.

iv PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

The value of this new edition has been much increased by the advice of Prof. William Ernest Hocking and the assistance of Mr. John Gilbert Beebe-Center.

EMERSON HALL, HARVARD UNIVERSITY

BENJAMIN RAND

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

"MODERN CLASSICAL PHILOSOPHERS" aims to present in a series of extracts some of the essential features of the chief philosophical systems produced by the great philosophers from Bruno to Spencer. The book is virtually a history of modern philosophy based not upon the customary description of systems, but upon selections from original texts, and upon translations of the authors themselves. The attempt has been made to apply the case system, which has proved so successful in the teaching of law, to philosophical instruction. In this respect the work follows the model of the author's earlier publication in Economic History, which was printed as a text book of required reading to accompany courses of lectures given on that subject in different universities. It is likewise hoped to provide the general reader with a volume from which he may readily discover the content and method of the great philosophical masters of the modern period.

Beginning with Bruno, the philosophical martyr, the dialogue which appears in this work is one in which the author describes the unity and divine immanence in all things in the universe, thereby anticipating the doctrine of Spinoza. From Bacon has been selected an account of "the idols" or false notions which hinder men from a right pursuit of scientific research, and of the theory of induction by which they may advance in a true interpretation of nature. The passages from Hobbes contain his doctrine of the natural state of man as one of war, and of the necessity of "that great Leviathan," whereby peace and order may be established in the political commonwealth. Of Descartes, a part of the "Discourse on Method" is printed first, since it contains his intellectual autobiography and his peculiar principles of method for the attainment of truth; a transition is then made to his "Meditations on First Philosophy," to set forth the application of his method of doubt to the discovery of absolute certainty, and also his attempt to demonstrate the

« ForrigeFortsæt »