Leading Harvard philosophy professor William Ernest Hocking (1873-1966), author of 17 books and in his day second only to John Dewey in the breadth of his thinking, is now largely forgotten, and his once-influential writings are out of print. This volume, which combines a rich selection of Hocking’s work with incisive essays by distinguished scholars, seeks to recover Hocking’s valuable contributions to philosophical thought.

First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Most simply stated, the business of Metaphysics is to understand the world, that is to say, the given world which, as given, is one stupendous Fact. This is something more than describing the world. Description, accurate and adequate, is the business of science: understanding the world is making sense of it--a quite different matter. That there is such a task implies that the world does not wear its sense on its sleeve: it presents much that seems nonsense, much that seems (...) anti-sense or what some of our French comrades call absurdity. It is precisely this refusal to make sense that is embodied in the concept of Fact. (shrink)