These lectures from the 1930s on David Hume, Thomas Reid and William James trace the development of John Anderson's empirical realism, helping to distinguish his position from "English" empiricism, Scottish commonsense and direct realism, radical empiricism and pragmatism. They also demonstrate Anderson's approach to the study of the history of philosophy. The lectures on David Hume place Anderson in direct opposition to his teacher and colleague at Edinburgh, Norman Kemp Smith, who heavily influenced the direction of Hume studies in the twentieth century. The lectures on Thomas Reid are unique in Anderson's works in addressing this seminal figure in the Scottish philosophical tradition, providing background reflections upon his own theory of mind as feeling, and arguing for the critical importance of Freud for contemporary philosophical realists. The lectures on William James offer a final accounting with this major American influence on Anderson's early philosophical development. For Anderson there can be no reconciliation between rationalism and empiricism. The view of the development modern philosophy as an emerging synthesis of these competing epistemological positions must be rejected. Rationalism is a persistent source of philosophical error and the philosophies of the so-called "empiricists" are fundamentally weakened by their rationalist assumptions. The very idea of providing a foundation for knowledge in notions of self-certainty represents an inherently rationalist project and must be rejected by any truly empiricist philosophy.

Table of Contents:
Foreword to the John Anderson series Introduction Note on the text and abbreviations Lectures on David Hume 1932 1. Introductory: Hume and his predecessors Lecture 1: rationalism and empiricism Lecture 2: simple impressions, complex states of affairs Lecture 3: knowledge of ideas, knowledge of things Lecture 4: Berkeley's theory of abstraction Lecture 5: kinds of existence 2. Hume's treatise and the theory of ideas Lecture 6: impressions and ideas Lecture 7: impressions and ideas continued Lecture 8: theories of truth Lecture 9: inconsistencies in Hume Lecture 10: memory and imagination Lecture 11: space and time Lecture 12: ideas of external existence Lecture 13: ideas of external existence continued 3. Knowledge and probability in Hume's treatise Lecture 14: Hume's philosophical relations Lecture 15: causal relations Lecture 16: causal relations continued Lecture 17: causal relations continued Lecture 18: causal relations continued Lecture 19: causal relations continued Lecture 20: causal relations continued 4. Hume's dialogues concerning natural religion Lecture 21: argument from design Lecture 22: Cleanthes' argument Lecture 23: occasioned and contrived - totality Lecture 24: totality continued Lecture 25: the incoherence of scepticism Lectures on Thomas Reid's Inquiry 1935 1. Introductory: Reid and his predecessors Lecture 1: Reid and the Scottish Englightenment Lecture 2: Ferrier on Reid Lecture 3: Cartesian without the cogito 2. Reid on sensations and external things Lecture 4: Reid and Cleanthes; the sense of smell Lecture 5: sense of smell continued Lecture 6: sensations and bodies Lecture 7: vision and appearance Lecture 8: vision and appearance continued Lecture 9: vision and appearance continued 3. Reid on knowledge of mind: mind as feeling Lecture 10: Descartes dual theory of truth Lecture 11: other minds - the Freudian unconscious Lecture 12: sense organ theory of knowledge Lectures on William James 1935 1. Introductory: James on relations Lecture 1: James and his predecessors Lecture 2: James and his predecessors continued Lecture 3: the question of relations Lecture 4: the question of relations continued Lecture 5: the rationalism of Kant 2. James principles of psychology and radical empiricism Lecture 6: James on necessary truths Lecture 7: necessary truths continued; pure experience Lecture 8: pure experience continued 3. James' A Pluralistic Universe Lecture 9: types of thinking Lecture 10: types of thinking continued Lecture 11: pluralism abandoned Lecture 12: monism and pluralism Lecture 13: monism and pluralism continued Lecture 14: James and Hegel Lecture 15: James and Bergson and Zeno Lecture 16: James account of reality as changing; James' conception of practice Lecture 17: James conception of practice continued Appendix: lectures appended to Lecture 11 Index