Hocking, William Ernest

Hocking, William Ernest, 1873–1966, American idealist philosopher, b. Cleveland, grad. Harvard (B.A., 1901; Ph.D., 1904). He was professor of philosophy at Harvard from 1914 until his retirement in 1943. His writings, which emphasize in particular the religious aspects of philosophy, include The Meaning of God in Human Experience (1912), Human Nature and Its Remaking (1923), The Lasting Elements of Individualism (1937), Science and the Idea of God (1944), The Coming World Civilization (1956), and The Meaning of Immortality in Human Experience (1957).

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Hocking, William Ernest (1873–1966) philosopher; born in Cleveland, Ohio. Born into a devout family of modest means, he spent a decade working his way through college, then studied philosophy at Harvard under Josiah Royce and others. His 1904 dissertation grew into his major work, The Meaning of God in Human Experience (1912), which expounded a religiously oriented idealistic metaphysics opening toward mysticism; he also wrote on political philosophy, notably in The Spirit of World Politics (1932). After teaching at Yale (1908–14) and elsewhere, he spent most of his career at Harvard (1914–43); during a long retirement in the New Hampshire countryside he continued to philosophize.