Abstract

An attempt to "remove the obstacles to a more positive kind of philosophizing than is now usually cultivated," and to "restore the traditional scope of philosophy." Eight historical chapters very rapidly review and criticize almost every major philosopher from Descartes on, claiming that there has been an unduly restricted conception of the data of experience and too narrow a view of the powers of thought. Four final "reconstructive" chapters sketch out a program for a modern synthesis which will continue the Greek and medieval tradition, beginning from a truly adequate empiricism and allowing full scope to the powers of human thinking, "uninhibited by Kantian presuppositions." This synthetic program might be taken more seriously if the preceding historical and critical chapters had been more carefully worked out.--B. H.