Schiller, Ferdinand Canning Scott (1864–1937)

F.C.S. Schiller was the outstanding exponent of pragmatism in Britain. His views, which he referred to at various times as humanism, voluntarism and personalism, as well as pragmatism, were strongly influenced by William James, to whom he paid great tribute, although he claimed to have arrived at his opinions independently. Schiller pursued the subjective and personal aspects of James’s psychology, whereas Dewey built on its objective and social elements. In taking the process of knowing as central to reality, Schiller was also influenced by Hegel. Schiller’s philosophy may be best approached in terms of his opposition to the absolute idealism of the then-dominant British Hegelians (particularly F.H. Bradley, his bête noire); Schiller thought their monism, rationalism, authoritarianism and intellectualism denied the basic insight of Protagoras that it is man who is the measure of all things.