INDEX 401




LECTURE I


THE TYPES OF PHILOSOPHIC THINKING

As these lectures are meant to be public, and so few, I have assumed
all very special problems to be excluded, and some topic of general
interest required. Fortunately, our age seems to be growing
philosophical again--still in the ashes live the wonted fires. Oxford,
long the seed-bed, for the english world, of the idealism inspired by
Kant and Hegel, has recently become the nursery of a very different
way of thinking. Even non-philosophers have begun to take an interest
in a controversy over what is known as pluralism or humanism. It
looks a little as if the ancient english empirism, so long put out of
fashion here by nobler sounding germanic formulas, might be repluming
itself and getting ready for a stronger flight than ever. It looks as
if foundations were being sounded and examined afresh.

Individuality outruns all classification, yet we insist on classifying
every one we meet under some general head. As these heads usually
suggest prejudicial associations to some hearer or other, the life
of philosophy largely consists of resentments at the classing, and
complaints of being misunderstood. But there are signs of clearing up,
and, on the whole, less acrimony in discussion, for which both Oxford
and Harvard are partly to be thanked. As I look back into the sixties,