A highly condensed account of the author's present view of some philosophical problems unresolved in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. The concept of incommensurability, now considerably developed, remains at center stage, but the evolutionary metaphor, introduced in the final pages of the book, now also plays a principal role.

In May 1908 James delivered a series of eight Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College, Oxford, on "The Present Situation in Philosophy." These were published a year later as A Pluralistic Universe. Here he captures a new philosophic vision, intimate and realistic, and shares a view of the universe that is fresh, active, and novel.