Shadworth Hodgson

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Shadworth Hollway Hodgson (1832-1912) was an English philosopher.

He worked independently, without academic affiliation. He was acknowledged by William James as a forerunner of Pragmatism, 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 and Samuel Taylor Coleridge as his chief inspirations, and had no academic background, though he was a member of the Metaphysical Society.

He was the first president of the Aristotelian Society 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.