- Lived:
- 1846–1924 · Clapham (London) and Oxford, England
- Tradition:
- British absolute idealism — the German inheritance anglicized, at the high tide of Victorian metaphysics
- The Big Idea:
- Ordinary thinking works by relating things to other things — and relations, examined closely, collapse into contradiction. So the everyday world of separate things in space and time is appearance; reality is one single, seamless experience: the Absolute.
- In their words:
- "Metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe upon instinct; but to find these reasons is no less an instinct."
- If you remember one thing:
- Analytic philosophy — the dominant tradition in the English-speaking world today — was born as a rebellion against this one reclusive Oxford bachelor, and it has never quite escaped his most famous argument.