Lanterna Rally

Author: W. R. Sorley

Publisher: Forgotten Books

Published: 2015-06-24

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 9781330296455

Excerpt from A History of English Philosophy The purpose of this book is to trace the history of philosophy in Great Britain from the time when it began to be written in the English language until the end of the Victorian era. There are two ways of writing the history of philosophy. One of them sets out from the standpoint of philosophy as conceived by the writer; the other from that of the philosophers themselves. On the former method the fundamental problems of philosophy will be presented at the outset, and each step taken towards their definition and solution will then be noted; whatever is irrelevant to the main issue will be left out of sight, however important it may have been in the minds of some of the philosophers. On the latter method the subject will be approached as it appeared to each philosopher in turn, and the presentation of definite concepts and clear issues will emerge gradually as the story progresses. Each of these methods has its own advantages and its own dangers. The former concentrates upon the essential, but it is liable to miss historical proportion by stressing certain features and overlooking others. The latter keeps in close touch with the documents, but care is needed to prevent the meaning of the whole from being obscured by details. The accounts of English thought contained in the general histories of modern philosophy have, for the most part, followed the former method and the result has often been one-sided and misleading, so that even English readers have been led to misjudge the character of their national philosophy. The other method has been followed in the present treatise. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.