J.M.E. McTaggart : Substance, Self, and Immortality

This book seeks to critically expound and appraise the thoughts of the foremost British philosopher, J.M.E. McTaggart, with respect to three principal themes of his philosophy: substance, self, and immortality. Sharma draws on all of McTaggart’s major writings to provide a comprehensive exposition of his overall theory of reality.

J.M.E. McTaggart seeks to critically expound and appraise the British philosopher’s thought with respect to three principal themes of his philosophy: substance, self, and immortality. Ramesh Kumar Sharma guides the reader through the labyrinths of McTaggart’s intricate arguments and defends many of McTaggart’s highly unorthodox doctrines and conclusions. While doing this, Sharma draws on the works of, among others, Berkeley, Hegel, and Leibniz, and at the same time attacks numerous modern-day physicalist theories that propound mind-brain identity as against the presumed reality of the self and consciousness. This work is thus recommended both for philosophers and researchers interested in: (1) such perennial metaphysical subjects as reality, existence, possibility, the basic ontological categories of substance, qualities, and relations (universals); (2) the question of the reality of the self; (3) McTaggart’s overall vision of the universe or Absolute, and his rejection of the more or less predominant view that the Absolute is God; (4) McTaggart’s unique doctrine, after Plato, of the immortality of the self combined with (the self ’s) pre-existence, post-existence, and plurality of lives; and (5) his extraordinary, but important, views on perception.