The Approach to Philosophy

Greek words that may not display correctly in all browsers are transliterated in the text using popups like this: βιβλος . Position your mouse over the line to see the transliteration. A few typographical errors have been corrected. A complete list follows the text. Click on the page number to see an image of the page. THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY BY PROF. RALPH BARTON PERRY THE FREE MAN AND THE SOLDIER THE MORAL ECONOMY THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY BY RALPH BARTON PERRY, Ph.D. ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS NEW YORK CHICAGO BOSTON Copyright, 1905, by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS Printed in the United States of America F THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED TO MY FATHER AS A TOKEN OF MY LOVE AND ESTEEM PREFACE In an essay on "The Problem of Philosophy at the Present Time," Professor Edward Caird says that "philosophy is not a first venture into a new field of thought, but the rethinking of a secular and religious consciousness which has been developed, in the main, independently of philosophy." [vii:A] If there be any inspiration and originality in this book, they are due to my great desire that philosophy should appear in its vital relations to more familiar experiences. If philosophy is, as is commonly assumed, appropriate to a phase in the development of every individual, it should grow out of interests to which he is already alive. And if the great philosophers are indeed never dead, this fact should manifest itself in their classic or historical representation of a perennial outlook upon the world. I am not seeking to attach to philosophy a fictitious liveliness, wherewith to insinuate it into the good graces of the student. I hope rather to be true to the meaning of philosophy. For there is that in its stand-point and its problem which makes it universally significant entirely apart from dialectic and erudition. These are derived interests, indispensable to the scholar, but quite separable from that modicum of philosophy which helps to make the man. The present book is written for the sake of elucidating the inevitable philosophy. It seeks to make the reader more solicitously aware of the philosophy that is in him, or to provoke him to philosophy in his own interests. To this end I have sacrificed all else to the task of mediating between the tradition and…