Elements of metaphysics

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Elements of Metaphysics

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A. E. TAYLOR

Late Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh

πατρὶς δὴ ἡμῖν ὅθενπερ ἤλθομεν καὶ πατὴρ ἐκεῖ

UNIVERSITY PAPERBACKS

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METHUEN : LONDON

First published by Methuen & Co Ltd in 1903 Printed in Great Britain by Morrison & Gibb Ltd, Edinburgh Catalogue No 2/6775/27

University Paperbacks are published by METHUEN & CO LTD 36 Essex Street, Strand, London WC2 and BARNES & NOBLE INC 105 Fifth Avenue, New York 3

TO F. H. BRADLEY

In heartfelt acknowledgment of all that his example and his writings have been to the men of my generation

Ante Ararim Parthus bibet, aut Germania Tigrim, Quam nostro illius labatur pectore vultus.

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ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS

PREFACE

In acknowledging my indebtedness to recent writers for many of the ideas contained in the following pages, I have in the first place to express my deep and constant obligations to the various works of Mr. F. H. Bradley. My chief debt to other recent English-speaking philosophers is to Professor Royce and Professor Ward, and I am perhaps scarcely less indebted to Professor Stout. My chief obligations to Continental writers are to Avenarius and to Professor Münsterberg. I trust, however, that there is not one of the authors with whose views I have dealt in the course of my work from whom I have not learned something. At the same time I ought perhaps to say here once for all that I make no claim to represent the views of any one author or school, and I shall not be surprised if the thinkers to whom I owe most find themselves unable to endorse all that I have written.

With respect to the references given at the end of the several chapters, I may note that their aim is simply to afford the reader some preliminary guidance in the further prosecution of his studies. They make no pretence to completeness, and are by no means exclusively drawn from writers who support my own conclusions.

One or two important works of which I should have otherwise been glad to make extended use have appeared too recently for me to avail myself of them. I may mention especially the late Professor Adamson’s Lectures on the Development of Modern Philosophy, Professor Ostwald’s Vorlesungen über Naturphilosophie, and Mr. B. Russell’s Principles of Mathematics, vol. 1.

Finally, I have to express my gratitude to my friends Professor S. Alexander and Mr. P. J. Hartog for their kindness in reading large portions of my proofs and offering many valuable corrections and suggestions.

1903

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The sudden demand for a re-issue of this volume prevents my making any alterations beyond the correction of a number of misprints. Had the opportunity offered, I should have been glad, while leaving the main argument essentially as it stands, to have attempted certain improvements in details. I may mention in particular, as the most important of the changes I could have wished to make, that the treatment of the problem of infinite regress and of the Kantian antinomies would have been remodelled, and I trust improved, as a consequence of study of the works of Mr. Bertrand Russell and M. Couturat.