The rediscovery of materials from the past has a kind of meaning different from apprehension of the latest in new achievements. Older contributions, when newly appreciated, return with a patina that is like the green of early spring, offering a chance for making corrections, for restoring balance, for overcoming the crabgrass. But even in this there are fashions of return and renewal. These days, rediscovery in the humanities seems to be of those works which combine passion with intelligence, or ideas with feelings. In poetry it is Walt Whitman, and in music, Gustav Mahler; in philosophy, perhaps it is time for a new look at pragmatism, and especially to the rightful place within it of F. C. S. Schiller, who has been singularly neglected for more than the full length of a generation. Such is the thesis: of Kenneth Winetrout's little book, F. C. S. Schiller and the Dimensions of Pragmatism.
Winetrout's concern is first of all to advance the elaim of pragmatism to reconsideration for its contemporary meaning and, secondly, to propose that if pragmatism is to be given a new lease, then Ferdinand Canning Scott Schiller, whose contribution was original and distinctive, might be found to have greater relevance for our scene than we have been wont to accord.