The Obsession with Time in 1880s-1930s American-British Philosophy

Thomas, Emily

Abstract

In American-British philosophy around the turn of the twentieth century, every philosopher and their dog had something to say on time. Thinkers worried about our experience of time: Do we actually experience time? How do we experience the present? Is temporal experience continuous? They also worried about the metaphysics of time: Is time real? What is its nature? How does time relate to space? Excepting the leviathan literature on J. M. E. McTaggart, time during this period is under-studied . Further, the existing scholarship tends 1 to be piecemeal, focusing on time in individual philosophers and only occasionally considering the philosophical scene more broadly2. This collection offers the first sustained study of 1880s-1930s American-British philosophy of time, exploring the work of Shadworth Hodgson, William James, Mary Calkins, Victoria Welby, Bertrand Russell, G. E. Moore, A. A. Robb, Alfred North Whitehead, Norman Kemp Smith, McTaggart, Karin Costelloe-Stephen, Hilda Oakeley, May Sinclair, and George P. Adams. The following pages showcase the richness and fecundity of temporal thought during this period.

Citation

Thomas, E. (2023). The Obsession with Time in 1880s-1930s American-British Philosophy. British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 31(2), 149-160. https://doi.org/10.1080/09608788.2022.2093157

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jun 20, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Feb 6, 2023
• Publication Date: 2023
• Deposit Date: Jul 1, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 8, 2023
• Journal: British Journal for the History of Philosophy
• Print ISSN: 0960-8788
• Electronic ISSN: 1469-3526
• Publisher: Routledge
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 31
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 149-160
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09608788.2022.2093157
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1200251