PREFACE 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. The difference in respect of distribution and emphasis between an Anglo-American and a Continental survey of contemporary philosophy may be observed from a comparison of the present volume with Ludwig Stein's excellent book, Die Philosophische Strömungen der Gegenwart. Portions of the present book are reprinted from periodicals; and I have made due acknowledgment in the proper places. I desire also gratefully to acknowledge the help of my friends Professor E. B. Holt, Professor E. G. Spaulding, Dr. M. P. Mason, Dr. H. M. Sheffer, and Dr. Günther Jacoby. RALPH BARTON PERRY. CAMBRIDGE, September, 1911. CONTENTS CHAPTER I. PHILOSOPHICAL THEORY AND ESTABLISHED BELIEF. § 1. Discrepancy between Theory and Belief. § 2. Theory and Belief as Forms of Knowledge, Having the Same § 7. The Natural Conservatism of Belief. Present Tendencies § 8. The Need of Mediation between Theory and Belief CHAPTER II. SCIENTIFIC AND RELIGIOUS MOTIVES IN PHILOSOPHY 1. The Difference between Science and Religion, and the Am- § 6. Conditions of Scientific Description . § 7. Illustrations of Scientific Method. Galileo's Conception 11. The Failure of Critical Naturalism. The Priority of Logic CHAPTER V. RELIGION AND THE LIMITS OF SCIENCE § 1. Religious Philosophy and the Limits of Science § 2. Naturalism and Supernaturalism § 4. The Fallibility of Science § 5. The Disparagement of the Descriptive Method § 6. The Ideal of Descriptive Economy. § 7. The Option of Hypotheses. |