Abstract

Written with a grace that is rare in philosophical discussion, Lovejoy in these lectures starts with the distinction of the Understanding and Reason in Jacobi and Kant. He deftly shows us how these concepts were developed and transformed in such thinkers as Schelling, Schlegel, Coleridge, Schopenhauer, Bergson, and others. The Understanding comes to be viewed as that faculty which is limited to the world of sensible phenomena and never reveals ultimate reality. Reason, after Kant, becomes the faculty by which we can have an immediate intellectual intuition of the Real. Gradually and subtly the connection with Bergson emerges, where the faculty that transcends mere pragmatic understanding grasps durée réelle. Once again, Lovejoy displays the excitement and suggestiveness of the history of ideas when handled by a master.--W. L. M.