Page:Philosophical Review Volume 23.djvu/383

No. 3.] {{hi|The Persistent Problems of Philosophy. An Introduction to Metaphysics through a Study of Modern Systems. By {{sc|Mary Whiton Calkins.}} Third Revised Edition. New York, The Macmillan Company, 1912.—pp. xxvi, 577.

This book, first published in 1907, has now reached its third edition. "The present revision of the book," Miss Calkins tells us, "has been undertaken primarily in order to relate its conclusions to the more recent of contemporary philosophical writings, and, in particular, to refer to the arguments against idealism so loudly urged by those who call themselves 'neo-realists.' Advantage has also been taken of the opportunity to amend and to supplement many passages of the book." The preface gives a detailed list of the additions and changes in this edition. It also calls attention to two points of terminology: (1) "to the useful, and neglected, distinction between 'qualitatively' and 'numerically' pluralistic or monistic systems, and (2) to the use, through-out the book, of the term 'idealism,' in the widest possible sense to mean 'the conception of reality as of the nature of consciousness.'"

With regard to this last point, there can be doubt that the protest against the limitation of 'idealism' to subjectivism is amply justified. Against the latter theory the neo-realists have claimed an easy victory; yet their victory has been barren because their logic has not allowed them to advance a step beyond the position which they criticize. But it seems to me doubtful whether Miss Calkins is justified in holding that her own use of the term 'idealism,' to mean that the universe is 'personal' or 'of the nature of consciousness,' is "the widest possible." I should be inclined to use the term 'idealism' for any philosophy that holds to the continuity and inner relationship of all of the various parts of reality. Anything is 'ideal' in which the nature of a whole is bound up, and which therefore cannot be defined by itself but only in terms of its 'representative' value and functions. Whether this category leads on necessarily to the conclusion that the universe is 'personal' is a question on which individual idealists disagree; the category of an Absolute person, or an Absolute experience is not necessarily, it seems to me, the only form under which an objective idealism can be maintained.

The Persistent Problems is a book which has gained a permanent place for itself in philosophical literature. Whether one approves the classifications of philosophical systems in the formalistic manner of this work, one is compelled to admire the clear and scholarly character of its presentation of problems and systems, and the courage with which it maintains the importance of the great issues of modern thought. It is assumed throughout that philosophy is not something that needs to be rendered 'interesting' by any external devices, but that it is a serious business demanding our best scholarship and most persistent thought. This is a book written for students, but a book which assumes that students of today still possess the intelligence and interests of their predecessors. The appendix and notes contain much valuable information, partly bibliographical, partly in the form of exposition, {{smallrefs}}