The Definition of the Thing: With Some Notes on Language - Softcover

A classic volume by a noted philosopher, available again. John William Miller (1895-1978) taught at Williams College, where from 1945 to 1960 he was Mark Hopkins Professor of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy. His extraordinary teaching is described in Masters: Portraits of Great Teachers, edited by Joseph Epstein. While deeply indebted to Plato, Kant, and Hegel, Miller arrived at a strikingly original reinterpretation of the history of philosophy, which, he believed, resolved long-standing epistemological and moral problems generated by that history. In The Definition of the Thing, an unusually provocative and original essay, Miller had works out a number of the basic contentions of his mature philosophy.

The first chapter is an analysis of philosophic maladies and a justification of the program to be followed. The next three are the groundwork, the solid portion, dealing with the analysis and definition of the thing. The fifth, sixth, and seventh contain inferences from the ground-work.