ABSTRACT
Philosophy is more than ever to-day the business of professionals and it is only from the most general standpoint that a non-specialist can venture to survey the field. The growth of Positivism in philosophy is partly the result of increased subservience to verbal forms and is partly due to the influence of the scientific method. Regarded from the non-specialist standpoint, the subservience of philosophy to semantics appears extraordinarily cramping. The assumption that every idea can be precisely expressed in words arises from the assumption that every problem is convergent. This is where the adapted mind is seen to be at work in philosophy. Physical investigation has shown that the word “table” comprises a great deal more than it contains in daily use, and Sir Arthur Eddington has been severely criticized by philosophers for saying that there are two tables, the familiar table and the scientific table.
