STUDIES IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY BY de Leo THEODORE DE LAGUNA, PH.D. PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN BRYN MAWR COLLEGE AND GRACE ANDRUS DE LAGUNA, PH.D. New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Copyright, 1910, By THEODORE DE LAGUNA PRESS OF THE NEW ERA PRINTING COMPANY 149.9 149.9 L1384 PREFACE. The term 'dogmatism' is here used to denote the body of logical assumptions which were generally made by thinkers of all schools, before the rise of theories of social and organic evolution. Its application is therefore wider than common usage would warrant. The empiricism of Berkeley and Hume, as well as the rationalism of Descartes and Leibniz, is included in its scope. The first part of the present work is devoted to the analysis and illustration of the dogmatic principles. In the later parts we have examined some of the philosophies by which dogmatism has, upon one side or another, been assailed: the critical philosophy, absolute idealism, and, at much greater length, pragmatism. It is to an excursion over well-traveled roads that the reader is invited. A glance over the pages will show them to be fairly sprinkled with the great names-Bacon, Hobbes, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Mill, James-while few others are mentioned except in passing. In a history this would be a sore defect. But our object was not history, but the critical analysis of principles; and this required the confinement of the discussion to a comparatively few systems that would be recognized as typical. While these pages were in press, William James passed away. The debt which we, in common with all of the younger American thinkers, owe to him cannot be measured-unless, perhaps, by the very eagerness with which we have upon many points attacked him. With the other leader of the American pragmatists, Professor John Dewey, we stand in a much closer sympathy. We say this here, because the hostile criticism which we have passed upon his theory of immediate empiricism ought not to disguise our direct indebtedness to him upon other lines. To Mr. Schiller no direct reference has been made, but certain of his characteristic positions are noticed in Appendix I. 170665 |