Appendix I 243APPENDICES (1918)
I
Philosophical objections, raised immediately after the
publication of this book, call for the addition of the fol-
lowing brief discussion to this new edition. I can imagine
that there are readers who take an interest in the other con-
tents of this book, but who will regard what follows as a
superfluous, remote, and abstract web of concepts. They
may leave this brief discussion unread. But problems crop
up in a philosophical contemplation of the world that have
their origin more in certain thinkers’ prejudices than in the
natural course of human thinking itself. Other issues treat-
ed in this book seem to me to present a task that concerns
every human being who strives for clarity in regard to the
essential nature of human beings and their relationship to
the world. What follows, however, rather involves a prob-
lem some treatment of which is called for by certain phi-
losophers in any discussion of the things portrayed in this
book. This is because those philosophers have created for
themselves certain difficulties that do not otherwise exist.
If we bypass such problems completely, some people will