| I | Changing Conceptions of Philosophy | 1 |
| Origin of philosophy in desire and imagination | |
| Influence of community traditions and authority | |
| Simultaneous development of matter-of-fact knowledge | |
| Incongruity and conflict of the two types | |
| Respective values of each type | |
| Classic philosophies (i) compensatory, (ii) dialectically formal, and (iii) concerned with "superior" Reality | |
| Contemporary thinking accepts primacy of matter-of-fact knowledge and assigns to philosophy a social function rather than that of absolute knowledge | |
| II | Some Historical Factors in Philosophical Reconstruction | 16 |
| Francis Bacon exemplifies the newer spirit | |
| He conceived knowledge as power | |
| As dependent upon organized cooperative research | |
| As tested by promotion of social progress | |
| The new thought reflected actual social changes, industrial, political, religious | |
| The new idealism | |
| III | The Scientific Factor in Reconstruction of Philosophy | 31 |
| Science has revolutionized our conception of Nature | |
| Philosophy has to be transformed because it no longer depends upon a science which accepts a closed, finite world | |
| Or, fixed species | |
| Or, superiority or rest to change and motion | |
| Contrast of feudal with democratic conceptions | |
| Elimination of final causes | |
| Mechanical science and the possibility of control of nature | |
| Respect for matter | |
| New temper of imagination | |
| Influence thus far technical rather than human and moral | |
| IV | Changed Conceptions of Experience and Reason | 44 |
| Traditional conception of nature of experience | |
| Limits of ancient civilization | |
| Effect of classic idea on modern empiricism | |
| Why a different conception is now possible | |
| Psychological change emphasizes vital factor using environment | |
| Effect upon traditional ideas of sensation and knowledge | |
| Factor of organization | |
| Socially, experience is now more inventive and regulative | |
| Corresponding change in idea of Reason | |
| Intelligence is hypothetical and inventive | |
| Weakness of historic Rationalism | |
| Kantianism | |
| Contrast of German and British philosophies | |
| Reconstruction of empirical liberalism | |
| V | Changed Conceptions of the Ideal and the Real | 59 |
| Idealization rooted in aversion to the disagreeable | |
| This fact has affected philosophy | |
| True reality is ideal, and hence changeless, complete | |
| Hence contemplative knowledge is higher than experimental | |
| Contrast with the modern practise of knowledge | |
| Significance of change | |
| The actual or realistic signifies conditions effecting change | |
| Ideals become methods rather than goals | |
| Illustration from elimination of distance | |
| Change in conception of philosophy | |
| The significant problems for philosophy | |
| Social understanding and conciliation | |
| The practical problem of real and ideal | |
| VI | The Significance of Logical Reconstruction | 76 |
| Present confusion as to logic | |
| Logic is regulative and normative because empirical | |
| Illustration from mathematics | |
| Origin of thinking in conflicts | |
| Confrontation with fact | |
| Response by anticipation or prediction | |
| Importance of hypotheses | |
| Impartial inquiry | |
| Importance of deductive function | |
| Organization and classification | |
| Nature of truth | |
| Truth is adverbial, not a thing | |
| VII | Reconstruction in Moral Conceptions | 92 |
| Common factor in traditional theories | |
| Every moral situation unique | |
| Supremacy of the specific or individualized case | |
| Fallacy of general ends | |
| Worth of generalization of ends and rules is intellectual | |
| Harmfulness of division of goods into intrinsic and instrumental | |
| Into natural and moral | |
| Moral worth of natural science | |
| Importance of discovery in morals | |
| Abolishing Phariseeism | |
| Growth as the end | |
| Optimism and pessimism | |
| Conception of happiness | |
| Criticism of utilitarianism | |
| All life moral in so far as educative | |
| VIII | Reconstruction as Affecting Social Philosophy | 107 |
| Defects of current logic of social thought | |
| Neglect of specific situations | |
| Defects of organic concept of society | |
| Evils of notion of fixed self or individual | |
| Doctrine of interests | |
| Moral and institutional reform | |
| Moral test of social institutions | |
| Social pluralism | |
| Political monism, dogma of National State | |
| Primacy of associations | |
| International humanism | |
| Organization a subordinate conception | |
| Freedom and democracy | |
| Intellectual reconstruction when habitual will affect imagination and hence poetry and religion | |
| Index | 124 |
