Knowledge and Life

First American Edition. Original publisher's blue cloth binding with gilt lettering on front cover and spine. 5 1/2" x 7 1/2." 307 pages, complete. Translator's Preface, Author's Preface, and Introduction in front. Index in back. Former owner's ink signature ("Lewis C. Carson") in top margin of title page. Pages are clean and intact overall but have foxing and rippling throughout, occasional pencil annotations, and the former owner's signature. Covers are very clean and intact except for darkening along spine, a few small stains on front and back, and slight wear to extremities. A Very Good copy. This is a philosophical work about the "Theory of Knowledge" and advocates for a perspective that examines material aspects of life in conjunction with the spiritual. It was written in response to recent scientific developments. In the Translator's Preface, W. Tudor Jones laments that the sciences exclude spiritual matters. He rhetorically asks, "Is it worth understanding and describing earthly things at the expense of relegating life and its deepest necessities to a secondary place?" He says the solution is "found in the presence of a spiritual life whose existence is not in space or time but in itself." The Author's Preface follows in which Rudolph Eucken writes, ". we shall attempt to show how Life has to be created--a Life that shall make genuine Knowledge possible. Further, we shall open the investigation concerning the meaning of Life and its connection with Reality, as well as show how, out of such a creative Life, the method and task of Knowledge are to be specifically moulded." He clarifies that this book is intended to be an introduction to a later work. Rudolph Eucken (1846-1926) was a German philosopher. He was a proponent of ethical activism, a philosophy that uses religious or spiritual ideas to solve societal problems, and believed that people have souls. He won the 1908 Nobel Prize in Literature for his work. Contents are divided into a "I. Critical Part" and "II. Explanatory Part." Contents under "Critical Part": "The Limits of Science," "The Failure of Speculative Philosophy; (a) The Transition to the Problem of Life," "Modern Conceptions of Life; (a) Pragmatism; (b) The Biological View," and "Retrospect and Prospect." Contents under "Explanatory Part": "The Main Thesis," "The Consequences of the Main Thesis; (a) Consequences of the Main Thesis of the Situation of Philosophy; (b) Consequences of the Main Thesis of the Work of Knowledge," and "Transition to the Present; (a) Analysis of Kant's Position; (b) The Demands of the Present.".…