ABSTRACT
The Abolition of Man is a text of moral philosophy-though Lewis was not part of the philosophy department of Oxford University. Followers of pragmatism, logical positivism, and the behaviorist philosopher and lecturer Gilbert Ryle rejected the core concept in Lewis's work that moral principles have an objective and divine source. Lewis argues that his contemporaries are losing their sense of true objective value in denying those moral principles that transcend time and place. Citing the Chinese philosopher Confucius, the Roman theorist Cicero, the Ancient Greeks, and the Bible, Lewis positions himself as the inheritor of an ancient set of philosophical insights and denies that he is a moral innovator. Although Lewis does not mention any of his contemporary opponents by name, one of his reviewers pits him against the American philosopher John Dewey. Dewey supported pragmatism-a philosophical movement that emerged in the United States in the 1870s and rejected the notion that thought and language faithfully represents reality.
