This is arguably the seminal work in historical andphilosophical analysis of the twentieth century.

"Still relevant, this 1960's book of essays of ideas is a must read for those who enjoy new ideas." -- Amazon.com viewed May 10, 2021.

One of the foremost contributions to the study of the history of ideas. Examines ancient sources pertaining to the original condition of mankind.

Originally published in 1963. The essays in this volume are critical and, with one exception, directed against the philosophic movement of pragmatism. "The Thirteen Pragmatisms" is an exercise in logical analysis and is a challenge to a group of philosophers who have taken on a collective name to show how their apparent diversities are to be reconciled. Few philosophers would call themselves orthodox followers of this train of thought, so these essays can be studied without a sense of personal injury (...) that deadens the critical faculty and obscures insight. In The Thirteen Pragmatisms and Other Essays, logical technique is on display: the author's keenness in spotting double meanings and his ability to rephrase them in univalent form. This collection of essays should afford students of philosophy a set of cases in which they need not take sides but which give them an analytical method they can practice themselves on contemporary issues. The fact that these essays are on the whole critical gives them a heuristic value that dogmatic or expository essays would not have. (shrink)

There is an old and persistent tendency in the human mind to conceive of the causal relation as rationally explanatory, and therefore to assimilate it, vaguely or explicitly, to the logical relations of inclusion, implication, or equivalence. That ‘ there cannot be more in the effect than there is in the cause’ is one of the propositions that men have been readiest to accept as axiomatic; a cause, it has been supposed, does not ‘ account for ‘ its effect, unless (...) the effect is a thing which the eye of reason could somehow discern in the cause, upon a sufficiently thorough analysis. This antipathy to the notion of an absolute epigenesis has left its effect, unless the effect is a thing which the eye of reason could somehow discern in the cause, upon a sufficiently thorough analysis. This antipathy to the notion of an absolute epigenesis has left its mark deep and wide upon the history of thought; it appears, indeed, at the very outset of Western speculation in the struggles of the physiologers with the supposed difficulty of admitting qualitative change. Two of the later phases of what may be named the preformationist assumption about causality may pertinently be remembered here. (shrink)

DUALISM AND THE PHYSICAL WORLD 257 IX. THE NATURE OF KNOWING AS A NATURAL EVENT . . 303 INDEX 323 PREFACE The principal purpose of this volume is not to present ...

There is an old and persistent tendency in the human mind to conceive of the causal relation as rationally explanatory, and therefore to assimilate it, vaguely or explicitly, to the logical relations of inclusion, implication, or equivalence. That ‘ there cannot be more in the effect than there is in the cause’ is one of the propositions that men have been readiest to accept as axiomatic; a cause, it has been supposed, does not ‘ account for ‘ its effect, unless (...) the effect is a thing which the eye of reason could somehow discern in the cause, upon a sufficiently thorough analysis. This antipathy to the notion of an absolute epigenesis has left its effect, unless the effect is a thing which the eye of reason could somehow discern in the cause, upon a sufficiently thorough analysis. This antipathy to the notion of an absolute epigenesis has left its mark deep and wide upon the history of thought; it appears, indeed, at the very outset of Western speculation in the struggles of the physiologers with the supposed difficulty of admitting qualitative change. Two of the later phases of what may be named the preformationist assumption about causality may pertinently be remembered here. (shrink)

Lovejoy's philosophical interpretation is a model of penetrating insight and helpful criticism.