This book demonstrates the influence of an Edwardian 'controversy' on Russell's philosophy of the external world. It brings to our attention a debate that raged amongst Edwardian philosophers on issues of central significance to analytic philosophy before Bertrand Russell entered the discussion. In explaining this Edwardian 'controversy', Nasim Omar combines meticulous scholarly detail with accessibility to argue that the formation of the original strands of 'realism' in British philosophy, usually credited to Russell and Moore, can in fact be linked with a group of Edwardian philosophers that included G.F.Stout and Sir T.P. Nunn.  The author re-examines the history of well known notions like 'sense-data' and 'sensibilia', and makes a case for understanding Russell's appeal for the application of 'logical constructions', at first only used as a device in mathematical logic, to the problem of the external world. This switch in the application of logical construction is seen as the rise of a new philosophical method. This book will not only shed light on the relevant doctrines of some of the Edwardian philosophers, but will also demonstrate the considerable role they played in the history of early analytic philosophy.

Series Editor's Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Stout's Proto-New-Realism
British New Realism: The Language of Madness
British New Realism: The Language of Common-Sense
Russell and the Nature of Sense-Data
The Methods of Construction
The Methods of Logical Construction
Conclusion
Endnotes
Bibliography
Index

OMAR NASIM is Senior Research Fellow at the Chair for Science Studies, ETH-Zurich and a Member of the NCCR Eikones, University of Basel, Switzerland.  Previously he was a Post-doctoral fellow for the project 'Knowledge in the Making,' a project jointly undertaken by both the Max Planck Institutes for the History of Science (Berlin) and for the History of Art (Florence).