XPost: alt.atheism, free.metaphysics

Book Review By:
Billy Mynews Ferrell
< http://www.moderated.xyz/index.php?topic=4.msg4#msg4 >

A THEORY OF REALITY
AN ESSAY
IX
METAPHYSICAL SYSTEM UPON THE BASIS
OF
HUMAN COGNITIVE EXPERIENCE
BY
GEORGE TRUMBULL LADD
ii
PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN YALE UNIVERSITY

PREFACE

The prefatory explanations which I wish to make with respect to the aims
and the conclusions of this book are so few
and obvious that they may be very briefly dispatched.

The problem which it attempts,
and the method which it employs,
are stated at some length in the first chapter.
Its main conclusions the " Theory of Reality "
it advocates are reiterated and en- forced in
connection with the critical discussion of each topic ;
they are given synthetic treatment and summarized in
the concluding portions of the book.

The faithfulness of its appeal to recognized facts
and to the positive sciences has been emphasized
by the frequency with which the conceptions
and phrases defining man's " cognitive experience " are employed.

There are, however,
two or three considerations to which I should like to call attention in this Preface.

The first of these concerns the relation in
which this book stands to a work published in 1897
and entitled " Philosophy of Knowl- edge.

" That work dealt with the problem of man as a knower ;
and this deals with the problem of the reality known.

These two problems,
although admitting of a certain amount of
relatively independent discussion,
are really not unlike two aspects of one
and the same all-inclusive object of human critical
and reflective thinking.

The doctrine of knowledge,
then, which was -elaborated in the earlier book,
is assumed and trusted throughout in
the discussions of this book.

And, on the other hand,
the theory of reality which was discovered


< https://archive.org/details/theoryofrealitye00laddrich/page/n13/mode/2up >

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