He preferred the notion of traditions, yet was also insistent that traditions of thought should not be viewed as mutually exclusive. His own method enabled him to analyse philosophical problems as they appeared to eighteenth-century writers and at the same time to indicate how those problems might still pose difficulties for us today. His examination of the conflict between Price and Edmund Burke in The Honest Mind is a fine example of his approach. He identified the essential differences between the two thinkers while also demonstrating that Burke's attack on Price was founded, at least in part, on a misunderstanding of Price's political principles.