The Definition of the Thing: with Some Notes on Language

The Definition of the Thing is John William Miller’s Harvard dissertation of 1922. In this unusually provocative and original essay, Miller had already worked out a number of the basic contentions of his mature philosophy.

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.