John (McTaggart Ellis) McTaggart (1866-1925)

3 September, 1866 - 18 January, 1925

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Motto (from Spinoza):" The free man thinks of nothing less than he does of death, and his wisdom is a meditation not of death but of life" (on memorial tablet in the antechapel of Trinity College Chapel)

Biographical Highlights
 

b., as John McTaggart Ellis, in  London, 3 September1866, to Francis and Caroline Ellis
As a condition of an inheritance from JME's maternal grand uncle, Sir John McTaggart, the family took the surname 'McTaggart.' Thus, JME became John McTaggart Ellis McTaggart
1870, death of JME's father
JME educated at Clifton College (1882-1885)
and at Trinity College, Cambridge (1885-1888) (Several of JME's relatives had attended Trinity)
1888, B.A. (placed alone in the first class of the Mental and Moral Science Tripos; won several prizes)
1891 and 1897, visits to his mother, who had emigrated toNew Zealand, and where he met and married his wife Daisy.
1891, elected to fellowship at Trinity. Fellowship thesis became the first 4 chapters of Studies in Hegelian Dialectic (1896). Sidgwick is reported to have said of this thesis that 'it was certainly nonsense, but was it the right kind of nonsense?'
1892, M.A. Cambridge
friend of Thomas Hardy
1896, Studies in the Hegelian dialectic (2d ed. 1922)
1897, became College Lecturer in the Moral Sciences, until 1922
1899-- Introduction to the study of philosophy
1901, Studies in Hegelian cosmology.
1902, Litt.D. Cambridge
1906, elected Fellow of the British Academy
1906, Some dogmas of religion
1910, A commentary on Hegel's logic
1914, LLD (honoris causa) St Andrews
voted in favour of dismissing Bertrand Russell from a College lectureship
1915, Human immortality and pre-existence [from Some dogmas]
1921, The nature of existence, volume 1
d. London 18 January 1925, at the age of 58 after a short illness, from an inherited, painful, circulatory disease .
1927, The nature of existence, volume 2, published posthumously; edited by C. D. Broad.
 

Principal works:

Studies in the Hegelian dialectic. 1st ed., 1896; 2d ed. Cambridge, University Press, 1922. xvi, 255 p.
Contents: first 4 chapters based on JME's Trinity College fellowship thesis, 1891
[For an electronic version. click on the title]


Studies in Hegelian Cosmology. Cambridge, University Press, 1901.xx, 292 p.
Contents: chapters V and VII from the International Journal of Ethics, July 1896 and July 1897

Some dogmas of religion, (1906) London: Edward Arnold, With an introduction by C. D. Broad. London: E. Arnold, 1930. iii, 299 p.
Contents: The importance of dogma.--The establishment of dogma.--Human immortality.--Human pre-existence.--Free will.--God as omnipotent.--A non-omnipotent God.--Theism and happiness.- -Conclusion. (Partly reprinted from the "International Journal of Ethics" and the Hibbert Journal.")


'The Unreality of Time', Mind: A Quarterly Review of Psychology and Philosophy 17 (1908): 456-473.


A commentary on Hegel's logic, Cambridge: The University Press, 1910. xv, 311 p. 23 cm. (Chapters II, III, VIII, IX, and X are based on articles which appeared in Mind (Oct. 1902; April, 1904; April and July, 1897; Jan. 1899; and April, 1900)

Dare to be wise : an address delivered before the "Heretics" Society in Cambridge, on the 8th December, 1909.  London : Watts & Co., 1910. 16 p.  "Issued for the Rationalist Press Association, Limited."

Human immortality and pre-existence. by John M'Taggart Ellis M'taggart. New York, Longmans, Green & co.; [etc.,etc.] 1915. 119, [1] p.

Introduction to the study of philosophy; syllabus of a course of lectures delivered in Trinity College in Cambridge.
[Cambridge, Eng., University Press, 190-?] pp. 28.
[McTaggart delivered these lectures annually, from 1899-1914, and from 1918-1924, to non-university students.]

The Nature of Existence, 2 v. Cambridge: The University Press, 1921-27.Vol. 2 published posthumously; edited by C. D. Broad.
 
[For a summary of The Nature of Existence, click here]

McTaggart - Biographical essay by Peter Geach. Philosophy, Vol: 70, no 274, pp. 567-579
 
Broad, C. D. (Charlie Dunbar), John McTaggart Ellis McTaggart, 1866-1925. London: H. Milford, 1928. 30 p., (From the Proceedings of the British Academy. Volume XIII)

Broad, C. D. (Charlie Dunbar), Examination of McTaggart's philosophy. 2 v. in 3. Cambridge [Eng.] : The University Press, 1933-38. (A detailed exposition and criticism of McTaggart's philosophy as expressed in his Nature of
existence.)

Dickinson, G. Lowes ed. J. McT. E. McTaggart [with chapters by Basil Williams & S.V. Keeling] Cambridge [Eng.] :
The University Press, 1931.viii, 160 p. front.,"[Material] collected for the most part by Mr. N.Wedd."--p. [vii]

Gale, Richard M., The language of time, London, Routledge & K. Paul; New York, Humanities P., 1968.
viii, 248 p. 23 cm.

Geach, P. T. Truth, love, and immortality : an introduction to McTaggart's philosophy. Berkeley : University of California Press, 1979.182 p.

Rochelle, Gerald. The life and philosophy of J. McT. E. McTaggart, 1866-1925. Lewiston, N.Y., USA : E. Mellen Press, 1991.260 p., [12] p. of plates : ill.

Rochelle, Gerald. Behind time : the incoherence of time and McTaggart's atemporal replacement. Aldershot, Hants, England ; Brookfield, Vt., USA : Ashgate, 1998. vii, 221 p. [Avebury series in philosophy  ]

Farmer, David John, Being in time : the nature of time in light of McTaggart's paradox. Lanham, [Md.] : University Press of America, 1990. 223 p.

Breunig, Hans Werner. Die Gemeinschaft in der Metaphysik McTaggarts. Frankfurt am Main ; New York : P. Lang, 1991. xiii, 326 p. : ill. Europaische Hochschulschriften. Reihe XX, Philosophie ; Bd. 335. Originally presented as the author's thesis (Ph.D.--Johannes Gutenberg-Universitat, 1987).

Breunig, Hans Werner, Zur englischen und europaischen Geistesgeschichte. Magdeburg : Technische Universitat "Otto von Guericke"/ Magdeburg, Institut fur Soziologie, 1993. 56 p. ; 20 cm. Contents: Locke und Rousseau uber Eigentum -- Einige Gedanken zum philosophischen Ursprung der englischen Romantik am Beispiel von Wordsworth und Coleridge -- McTaggarts Philosophie.
 

Correspondence
 

Bibliography - Secondary Materials

• entry in Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century British Philosophers

Photographs
 
 

Biographical note at xrefer
http://www.xrefer.com/entry/552756

David J. Buller and Thomas R. Foster, "The New Paradox of Temporal Transience," Philosophical Quarterly 42 (1992), pp. 357-366
http://www.soci.niu.edu/~phildept/Buller/timeflow.html

Martin Luther King, Jr. "The Personalism of J. M. E. McTaggart Under Criticism" 4 December
1951  [Boston, Mass.]
In Volume II: Rediscovering Precious Values,
September 1951-November 1955
http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/papers/vol2/511204-The_Personalism_of_J_M_E_Taggart_
Under_Criticism.htm

Context

Analytic Philosophy
http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/0/0,5716,115430+8+108676,00.html

Idealism
http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/3/0,5716,115433+1+108679,00.html

http://www.xrefer.com/entry/551918

Critical and Speculative Philosophy, by C. D. Broad
http://www.ditext.com/broad/csp.html