Note 74 — Chapter II · PRAGMATISM AND THE PRAGMATIST MOVEMENT

Author of a work on Philosophy and Social Economy (Philosophie und Wirthschaft), in which the fundamental idea is that philosophy is essentially nothing more or less than a “conception of life” or a view of the world in general, and that the older rationalistic philosophy will therefore have to be modified in view of modern discoveries and modern ways of looking at things. It has, of course, the limitations of such a point of view, in so far as its author seems to forget that philosophy must lead human life and not merely follow it. My present point is merely to mention of the existence and work of this man as one of the continental thinkers who have anticipated the essentially social conception of philosophy taken by the pragmatists.