A Dictionary of Philosophy

Abstract

TO those who like to pick up information in a scrappy way, this volume will no doubt prove useful. Chancing, for example, on the word realism, and feeling somewhat hazy as to its exact meaning, the inquiring reader turns to his “Dictionary of Philosophy,” and under the head “Realism or Dualism” finds a statement from Fleming of the theory “as generally held,” and short paragraphs descriptive of (1) Sir W. Hamilton's natural realism, (2) Herbert Spencer's transfigured realism, (3) the reasoned realism of George H. Lewes, and (4) intuitive realism, McCosh. Still unsatisfied, he turns to the “Theories of the Concept,” and learns of the doctrine of realism from Monck, Whately, and Mill; of its varieties (extreme realism and moderate realism) from Ueberweg; of its origin from Ferrier, Maurice, and Ueberweg; of its truth and error from Noah Porter and Whately; and he is perhaps rather shocked, in conclusion, to learn from Mill that it is “an abandoned doctrine.”

A Dictionary of Philosophy in the Words of Philosophers.

Edited, with an Introduction, by J. Radford Thomson, Professor of Philosophy in New College, London. (London: R. D. Dickinson, 1887.)