Importance of Subjectivity : Selected Essays in Metaphysics and Ethics

Timothy Sprigge was one of the leading exponents of philosophical idealism in the last fifty years. His scholarly work in the history of modern philosophy focused on Baruch Spinoza, William James, Josiah Royce, George Santayana, F. H. Bradley, Arthur Schopenhauer, Edmund Husserl, and Alfred North Whitehead: this eventually led to the construction of his own original system of metaphysics he called 'panpsychistic absolute idealism'. Idealism, long unfashionable, has been coming back into favour, and Sprigge's work has found a new readership. This selection of his finest essays ranges widely over metaphysics, ethics, and the history of philosophy: all the themes that he discusses are drawn together in his unique philosophical system, based upon his original theory of the nature of consciousness.

Timothy L. S. Sprigge (1932-2007) was Professor of Logic and Metaphysics in the University of Edinburgh. He received his PhD from the University of Cambridge working under R. T. H. Redpath and, later, A. J. Ayer. Professor Sprigge held positions teaching philosophy at University College London, Sussex University and, as a visiting professor, at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and President of the Aristotelian Society.

Leemon B. McHenry is Lecturer in Philosophy at California State University, Northridge. In 2007, he co-edited with Pierfrancesco Basile a Festschrift honouring T. L. S. Sprigge, Consciousness, Reality, and Value: Essays in Honour of T. L. S. Sprigge. McHenry has taught philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, Old Dominion University, Davidson College, Central Michigan University, and held research positions at the Johns Hopkins University, UCLA, and the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh. He became literary executor to T. L. S. Sprigge in 2007.