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Nature of Existence

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In this his masterpiece, John McTaggart Ellis McTaggart develops his Idealist, more or less Hegelian metaphysics in painstaking detail. A clear, no-nonsense thinker who professed impatience with the sort of philosophy that "emanate[d] from the west of Scotland" -- i.e. the pleasantly sermonic sort of Idealism typically invoked for its sweet morals and religion-friendly messages -- McTaggart was himself an atheist (and, incidentally, a staunch supporter of the free market). In this massive two-volume work, he argues that existence itself consists, at bottom, of finite centers of experience related to one another through love.

Some of his arguments have been tried and found wanting; his proof that time is unreal (the famous bit about the A-series, the B-series, and the C-series) has in particular not stood up to examination. But it's unusual these days to find massive works of systematic philosophy written at all, let alone with the monumental grace and wit of thinkers like McTaggart.

Interested readers will also want to check out his _Some Dogmas of Religion_, and hard-core students should try to scare up a copy of Charlie Dunbar Broad's _Critical Examination of McTaggart's Philosophy_. Also, readers attracted by McTaggart's thesis may enjoy Timothy Sprigge's _The Vindication of Absolute Idealism_.