The present book was written some twenty years ago but it has not lost
its topicality, for it contains an important re-assessment of the
relations of two main- streams of contemporary philosophy - the
Analytical and the Dialectic. Adherents and critics of these traditions
tend to assurnethat they are diametrically opposed, that their roots,
concerns and approaches contradict each other, and that no
reconciliation is possible. In contradistinction Russell derives both
traditions from the common root of the dissatisfaction with the
arguments against speculative philosophy. These according to the author
leave a lacuna - certain elementsof our Weltanschaaung have been
removed, but they cannot be removed without replacement lest we have an
incomplete world view, so incomplete in fact that it cannot be viable.
According to Russell part of this vacuum is taken up by the analytical
tradition but this tradition is not capable of taking up the remainder
of it. That portion of the vacant space is however taken up by the
dialectical tradi- tion, which in turn cannot itself handle the whole of
the problem. Thus the two reactions to the demise of speculative
philosophy appear to be complementary in at least this sense. But the
author goes further, for according to hirn the analytical arguments
themselves clearly point to the emergence of dialectical problems, and
the dialectical problems themselves need some such background to arise.