Shadworth Hollway Hodgson and William Kingdon Clifford
Following on from a brief consideration of the Metaphysical Society, this chapter considers two highly original empiricist thinkers who used their membership as an opportunity to develop bold new metaphysical schemes. The chapter begins by outlining Hodgson’s unique methodology of descriptive empiricism, whose consequences are then explored via his theory of causality (or ‘real conditions’), his construction of external material reality, and his position about things-in-themselves. Lastly it is considered how his strict empiricism nonetheless leads him to embrace the curious notion of a ‘unseen universe’ of significance for both immortality and religion. The discussion of Clifford examines his empiricism, his phenomenalism, and his views about causation and religion, before examining in detail his paper ‘On the Nature of Things-in-themselves’, which (it is argued) brings him to another form of unseen reality.