Shadworth Hollway Hodgson, FBA (1832 – 13 June 1912) was an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national id ...

philosopher.

Biography

He worked independently, without academic affiliation. He was acknowledged by

William James William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher, historian, and psychologist, and the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States. James is considered to be a leading thinker of the la ...

as a forerunner of

Pragmatism Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that considers words and thought as tools and instruments for prediction, problem solving, and action, and rejects the idea that the function of thought is to describe, represent, or mirror reality. ...

, although he viewed his work as a completion of Kant's project. Hodgson was a member of a London philosophy club with James, called the "Scratch Eight". Hodgson regarded the poets

William Wordsworth William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication ''Lyrical Ballads'' (1798). Wordsworth's '' ...

and

Samuel Taylor Coleridge Samuel Taylor Coleridge (; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lak ...

as his chief inspirations, and had no academic background, though he was a member of the

Metaphysical Society The Metaphysical Society was a famous British debating society, founded in 1869 by James Knowles, who acted as Secretary. Membership was by invitation only, and was exclusively male. Many of its members were prominent clergymen, philosophers, and ...

. He was the first president of the

Aristotelian Society The Aristotelian Society for the Systematic Study of Philosophy, more generally known as the Aristotelian Society, is a philosophical society in London. History Aristotelian Society was founded at a meeting on 19 April 1880, at 17 Bloomsbury Squar ...

and held that post from 1880 to 1894. His principal work was ''The Metaphysic of Experience'' (1898) which prepared the way for New Realism. He objected to the stance of empiricism in its postulating of persons and things, and insisted that neither subject nor object are warranted as initial considerations of philosophy. He died on 13 June 1912. Attention to Hodgson was briefly enlivened by an article by Wolfe Mays in a British phenomenology journal in the 1970s. The volumes of Hodgson's principal work were often shipped with uncut pages and visits to libraries with these volumes has revealed that sometimes most pages of all 4 volumes remained uncut even one hundred years later.

Notes

External links

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
article on Hodgson
Philosophy of Reflection
at openlibrary.org
The metaphysic of experience
University of Wisconsin - Madison scan

* Metaphysicians English philosophers 1832 births 1912 deaths Presidents of the Aristotelian Society Burials at Kensal Green Cemetery Fellows of the British Academy {{UK-philosopher-stub