Reissue from the classic Muirhead Library of Philosophy series (originally published between 1890s - 1970s).

First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Portrays the lives of four influential philosophers and describes that their lives were lived in a quiet and reasonable manner.

Like others who work in philosophy, I asked myself from time to time what I was trying to do in my philosophizing. The natural answer seemed to be that I was trying to understand the world, and to do so by taking any thing or event that puzzled me and pressing the question Why? till I arrived at the understanding I sought. And what does understanding anything mean? It means to explain it or to render it intelligible. And when does (...) it become intelligible? Only when it is seen in context, and seen as required by that context. This requirement is of various kinds. Sometimes it is causal, as when an attack of malaria is explained by the bite of the anopheles mosquito. Sometimes it is a means-end relation, as when the presence of a rudder is explained as a means of guiding a ship. Sometimes it is logical, as when the Pythagorean theorem is explained by showing that it follows necessarily from other accepted propositions of geometry. (shrink)

“Pure white light!” exclaimed a British philosopher in my hearing some fifty years ago when the conversation turned to Henry Sidgwick. That sums up pretty well what his contemporaries thought of him. He stood in their view as the exemplar of objectivity in thought, of clear and passionless understanding. The light he threw on his subject was uniquely uncolored by feeling, prejudice, or desire.

I am grateful to the group of philosophers who gave so liberally of their time and talent to the January issue of Idealistic Studies, which was devoted to my work. My thanks go particularly to Richard De George and Charles Landesman, who conceived the idea of such a collection, and to Robert Beck who, as editor, cooperated with them warmly. I treasure the collection the more because all the writers have been in one way or another students of mine. Judging (...) by their admirable essays, I was more successful in persuading them that rival positions were wrong than that my own were right. About that I cannot complain. The business of a philosophy teacher is not to produce disciples but to offer a discipline in thinking; and if the discipline is effective enough to expose cracks in his own system, that is at least some evidence that he has done his job. (shrink)

In recent years I have wandered rather freely about the American scene, visiting over a hundred colleges and conversing with many hundreds of colleagues. The major impression I have brought back with me is of the overall health of American education. To be sure, the standards vary enormously. In the private universities-of the northeast and the better state universities of the middle west, the level of faculty scholarship and student qualification is high. In some of the smaller sectarian colleges, gasping (...) to keep alive in the rising tide of costs, with little or no endowment and an overworked staff, the standards and the atmosphere are less happy. Still, the general impression is one of vitality. Nearly everywhere I went, I had the same sense of dedication on the part of the staff and of eager receptiveness on the part of the students. (shrink)

Owing to an absence from home, I did not see Professor Errol Harris’s critique of my Gifford Lectures, Reason and Belief, till long past its appearance. But the criticism clearly demands an answer. Mr. Harris argues his case with acuteness and urbanity, and with a command of science that I can only envy.