Page:Philosophical Review Volume 31.djvu/13

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Number 1.
Volume XXXI.


January, 1922.

Whole
Number 181.

THE

PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW.


PSYCHOLOGY AND IDEALISTIC PHILOSOPHY.

(Second Article.)

IN the March issue of this Review,[1] in the course of an article on Psychology and Idealistic Philosophy, I spoke about a point of view from which a correlation might be made between two readings of human experience, that taken by the classical idealistic philosophy and that which is being taken by some of the more recent departures in psychological research.

To effect a correlation between two things so different requires some interpretation of each of them. Of idealistic philosophy interpretation is comparatively easy. Its monuments are raised. Its records are there to be read. Of the other movement, which differs in that its records are in the making and its work hardly more than begun, interpretation is naturally more difficult—more hazardous. Even to speak of a 'reading of human experience' which it is alleged to be taking, will be already to suggest prematurity of judgment to many minds.

These circumstances are probably not, however, such as should put our enterprise out of court. It might be otherwise with an enterprise of another kind. An elaborate project of detailed correlation, between the story regarding the various departments or functions of the mind which is disclosed in recent psychology, and the general view taken by the older metaphysic on the same subject would certainly be premature and could probably only belong to a time when philosophy had both enterprises before it in some completeness. But the possibility is not ruled out that a

  1. Vol. XXX, 2, pp. 170-177.