According to the late F. C. S. Schiller, the greatest obstacle to fruitful
discussion in philosophy is "the curious etiquette which apparently taboos
the asking of questions about a philosopher's meaning while he is alive."
The "interminable controversies which fill the histories of philosophy," he
goes on to say, "could have been ended at once by asking the living
philosophers a few searching questions."
The confident optimism of this last remark undoubtedly goes too far.
Living thinkers have often been asked "a few searching questions," but their answers have not stopped "interminable controversies" about their real meaning. It is none the less true that there would be far greater
clarity of understanding than is now often the case, if more such searching questions had been directed to great thinkers while they were still alive.
This, at any rate, is the basic thought behind the present undertaking. The
volumes of The Library of Living Philosophers can in no sense take the place of the major writings of great and original thinkers. Students who would know the philosophies of such men as John Dewey, George
Santayana, Alfred North Whitehead, G. E. Moore, Bertrand Russell, Ernst
Cassirer, Karl Jaspers, Rudolf Carnap, Martin Buber, et al., will still need to
read the writings of these men. There is no substitute for first-hand
contact with the original thought of the philosopher himself. Least of all
does this Library pretend to be such a substitute. The Library in fact will
spare neither effort nor expense in offering to the student the best
possible guide to the published writings of a given thinker. We shall
attempt to meet this aim by providing at the end of each volume in our series a complete bibliography of the published work of the philosopher in question. Nor should one overlook the fact that the essays in each volume cannot but finally lead to this same goal. The interpretative and critical discussions of the various phases of a great thinker's work and, most of all, the reply of the thinker himself, are bound to lead the reader to the
According to the late F. C. S. Schiller, the greatest obstacle to fruitful
discussion in philosophy is "the curious etiquette which apparently taboos
the asking of questions about a philosopher's meaning while he is alive."
The "interminable controversies which fill the histories of philosophy," he
goes on to say, "could have been ended at once by asking the living
philosophers a few searching questions."
The confident optimism of this last remark undoubtedly goes too far.
Living thinkers have often been asked "a few searching questions," but their answers have not stopped "interminable controversies" about their real meaning. It is none the less true that there would be far greater
clarity of understanding than is now often the case, if more such searching questions had been directed to great thinkers while they were still alive.
This, at any rate, is the basic thought behind the present undertaking. The
volumes of The Library of Living Philosophers can in no sense take the place of the major writings of great and original thinkers. Students who would know the philosophies of such men as John Dewey, George
Santayana, Alfred North Whitehead, G. E. Moore, Bertrand Russell, Ernst
Cassirer, Karl Jaspers, Rudolf Carnap, Martin Buber, et al., will still need to
read the writings of these men. There is no substitute for first-hand
contact with the original thought of the philosopher himself. Least of all
does this Library pretend to be such a substitute. The Library in fact will
spare neither effort nor expense in offering to the student the best
possible guide to the published writings of a given thinker. We shall
attempt to meet this aim by providing at the end of each volume in our series a complete bibliography of the published work of the philosopher in question. Nor should one overlook the fact that the essays in each volume cannot but finally lead to this same goal. The interpretative and critical discussions of the various phases of a great thinker's work and, most of all, the reply of the thinker himself, are bound to lead the reader to the
works of the philosopher himself.