LECTURE 1 



CURRENT TENDENCIES 



Philosophy, from the earliest times, has made greater 

 claims, and achieved fewer results, than any other branch 

 of learning. Ever since Thales said that all is water, 

 philosophers have been ready with glib assertions about 

 the sum-total of things ; and equally glib denials have 

 come from other philosophers ever since Thales was con- 

 tradicted by Anaximander. I believe that the time has 

 now arrived when this unsatisfactory state of things can 

 be brought to an end. In the following course of lectures 

 I shall try, chiefly by taking certain special problems as 

 examples, to indicate wherein the claims of philosophers 

 have been excessive, and why their achievements have not 

 been greater. The problems and the method of philo- 

 sophy have, I believe, been misconceived by all schools, 

 many of its traditional problems being insoluble with our 

 means of knowledge, while other more neglected but not 

 less important problems can, by a more patient and more 

 adequate method, be solved with all the precision and 

 certainty to which the most advanced sciences have 

 attained. 



Among present-day philosophies, we may distinguish 

 three principal types, often combined in varying propor- 

 tions by a single philosopher, but in essence and tendency 

 distinct. The first of these, which I shall call the classi- 

 cal tradition, descends in the main from Kant and Hegel ; 



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