English-language Philosophy, 1750 to 1945

Book excerpt: From the end of the Enlightenment to the middle of the twentieth century philosophy took fascinating and controversial paths whose relevance to contemporary post-modernist thought is becoming ever clearer. This volume traces the English-language side of the period, while also taking into account those continental thinkers who deeply influenced twentieth-century English-language philosophy. The story begins with Reid, Coleridge, and Bentham - who set the agenda for much that followed - and continues with a portrait of the nineteenth century's greatest British philosopher, John Stuart Mill. It then surveys the cross-currents of thought at the end of the century, including American pragmatism, a movement never more influential than now. Finally, it assesses two phases of what John Skorupski calls 'analytic modernism' - the revolution against idealism of Moore and Russell, and the Viennese sequel whose project was to show that philosophy consists of pseudo-problems.