A generation ago few students (or even professors) of philosophy on either side of the English Channel knew very much about the philosophy that was being produced, studied and debated on the other side. Nor for the most part had they any interest in seeking to find out. Indeed, they felt in general fully justified in their ignorance by a settled conviction of the frivolity, superficiality and lack of any rigorous intellectual value of that of which they were accordingly more than content to remain ignorant.

Now – happily – times seem to be changing. On both sides of the same Channel signs are multiplying of a serious desire to learn about what has been and is going on on the other side, and even to participate in it; and, beyond the often still persisting incomprehension, there is an increasing return to the goodwill of mutual recognition and respect.

It would be wrong to exaggerate. It takes more than the few proverbial swallows to make a summer; and reciprocal ignorance, fortified by all the weight of recent tradition and the inertial power of institutions such as the academic syllabus, is still formidable enough. Moreover, in a situation in which ignorance has been for so long so entrenched it becomes genuinely difficult for anyone, however inquiring and however ‘open-minded’, to know exactly how to set about remedying his situation.