Mind!: An Unique Review of Ancient and Modern Philosophy

by Ferdinand Canning Scott Schiller

Excerpt from Mind!: An Unique Review of Ancient and Modern Philosophy

The appearance of a Nova in' the intellectual sky is apt to attract attention and demand explanation. We therefore hasten to assure the public that no harm is intended, and that mind is not meant to compete seriously with the already too numerous existing journals of philosophy. Its aim is rather to relieve than to enhance the existing depression of Philosophy, by throwing light on an aspect of Experience which philosophers have too often and too long neglected.

About the Publisher

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This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

156 pages, Paperback

Published May 5, 2017

About the author

Ferdinand Canning Scott Schiller (August 16, 1864 - August 9, 1937) was a German-British philosopher. Born in Altona, Holstein (at that time member of the German Confederation, but under Danish administration), Schiller studied at the University of Oxford, and later was a professor there, after being invited back after a brief time at Cornell University. Later in his life he taught at the University of Southern California. In his lifetime he was well-known as a philosopher; after his death his work was largely forgotten.

Schiller's philosophy was very similar to and often aligned with the pragmatism of William James, although Schiller referred to it as "humanism". He argued vigorously against both logical positivism and associated philosophers (for example, Bertrand Russell) as well as absolute idealism (such as F.H. Bradley).

Schiller was an early supporter of evolution and a founding member of the English Eugenics Society.

Reviews

[Allan Olley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very involved parody of the philosophy journal Mind (its format closely follows a typical issue of Mind and it may indeed have been published as a special issue of that periodical?). It contains a large set of articles that resemble what one might find in a philosophy journal (articles on philosophical topics, works attributed to historical philosophers), but also some other periodicals (a set of letters authored by a young woman who visits famous philosophers rather like the travelogue of a tourist). Some comedic advertisements are included. The satire can be very broad in some cases (F. H. Bradley is lampooned as F. H. Badly), but in some cases the satire is so dry it would be difficult to distinguish it from a serious philosophical paper. The volume also contains dozens of limericks on philosophical topics (often a humorous summary statement about this or that philosopher). A common target of ridicule was "the Absolute" as invoked by various late 19th and early 20th century philosophers as an ineffable, but central point of certain philosophies. Also, iconic formula in philosophy are played with (a discussion of marriage invokes the principle call no marriage happy before the divorce recalling the injunction to call no man happy before he dies).

Overall I found the efforts amusing, but not many of the jokes were real knee slappers or otherwise clever or notable. This may be due to my relative ignorance of the particular of philosophy in 1901 or of the literary and magazine style at the time that is being satirized. A few articles were in German and I could not really read them at all but this amounted to at most 10 pages and probably much less.

I read this as a pdf scan of the original 1901 publication.