A History of Philosophy - With Especial Reference to the Formation and Development of Its Problems and Conceptions #267248

BY philosophy present usage understands the scientific treatment of the general questions relating to the universe and human life. Individual philosophers, according to the presuppositions with which they have entered upon their work, and the results which they have reached in it, have sought to change this indefinite idea common to all, into more precise definitions,1 which in part diverge so widely that the common element in the conception of the science may seem lost. But even the more general meaning given above is itself a limitation and transformation Of the original significance which the Greeks connected with the name philosophy, — a limita tion and transformation brought about by the whole course of the in tellectual and spiritual life of the West, and following along with the same.