This is the second of three volumes covering the history of the Western tradition of philosophy which originated in ancient Greece. The purpose of the work is not primarily to furnish a wealth of historical information but rather to give an insight into the nature of problems, themes, and theories which are of present-day, and possibly permanent, philosophical interest. The emphasis throughout is on the intellectual problems, and the content of the theories, rather than on the personalities of the philosophers. Wedberg writes in the analytical tradition. He takes the view that analysis is practically always a necessary ingredient in the fruitful treatment of a philosophical problem, and that the analytical tradition involves an intellectual discipline which is always desirable in philosophers. However, he does not subscribe to the tenets of any particular analytical school, or hold one particular philosophical activity to be the proper one to the exclusion of all others. The result is clear, refreshing, and stimulating. Volume 1 traces the development of philosophy from a position initially subordinate to religion to one where science acquired equal or superior influence. The rapid development of science and its many technical applications filled the philosophers of the seventeenth century with an enthusiastic optimism as to the possibility of man's obtaining knowledge and using it to improve himself and his world. This period saw the revival of the Greek ideal of a deductive science, and the erection of the great systems of Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz. The British empiricist philosophers such as Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, on the other hand, turned their attention to an investigation into the nature of knowledge rather than material reality, and to a critique of speculative philosophy, science, and religion. Kant is seen as having elements in common with this tradition, but his ideas, which he hoped would lay the philosophical foundations for natural science, in fact led to a rift between philosophy and science in German romantic philosophy and its many off-shoots. The book concludes with an Appendix devoted to Marx and Engels and the place of socialism and dialectical materialism in the traditions which preceded them. Anders Wedberg was Professor of Philosophy at Stockholm University from 1949 until 1975. He studied at the universities of Uppsala, Stockholm, Princeton, and Harvard, and taught logic and philosophy at Cornell University from 1941 to 1943. He was the author of a number of books and articles, including Plato's Philosophy of Mathematics (Uppsala, 1955), and translations into Swedish of Wittgenstein's Tractatus and Philosophical Investigations. The three-volume Filosofins historia (History of Philosophy) first appeared in Sweden in J958, 1959, and 1966.