Abstract | Keywords | Export | Availability | Bookmark

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

It has not been my purpose in this work to write a complete History of Modern Philosophy. Such an undertaking, if fitly carried out, would far exceed the limits within which wished to keep, and would compel me to enter into some wearisome details. I have endeavored to present a full analysis and criticism of the systems only of those great thinkers whose writings have permanently influenced the course of European thought, paying most attention to the earlier French and later German philosophers, with whom comparatively few English readers are at all familiar. Hence I have said little about Hobbes or Locke, Hume, Reid, or Hamilton, whose writings are accessible to all, and who ought not to be studied by thoughtful and earnest inquirers at second hand. But the great names of Descartes, Spinoza, and Malebranche, of Leibnitz and Kant, of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, are little more than names with most English students, even including many of those who assume to weigh their systems against each other and to dogmatize respecting their merits and defects. Perhaps the experience of one whose duty it has been for many years to lecture upon their writings to large classes of University students may have been valuable, in so far as it has induced the endeavor to make intelligible what is abstruse and obscure, and to render a discussion interesting which may appear at first sight repulsive, though it is really important and profound. I believe that Kant, Hegel, and Schopenhauer, to mention no others, have not been fairly appreciated by English students of philosophy, because they have not been thoroughly understood, probably for the reason that metaphysical thought on the Continent of Europe generally assumes a pedantic and technical garb to which the countrymen of Locke and Berkeley are not habituated, and for which they have an instinctive dislike. A translation of their works, however faithfully executed, is even more obscure than the original, as it sacrifices the advantage which one who studies them in German possesses through the etymology of the technical terms, which often reflects much light upon their meaning and upon the general course of thought. My purpose has been to furnish an exposition of their systems which should be intelligible throughout, and also comprehensive enough to enable the student to form a fair estimate of their excellences and defects, and even, if he wishes, to peruse with little difficulty the works themselves, either in the original or in an English translation. In particular, I have endeavored to give a complete analysis and explanation of Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason;" for one who has fairly mastered this great work holds the key to all German metaphysics.

Philosophy, Modern --- History.