Nicholas Hagger

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Nicholas Hagger's philosophy is comprehensively set out in The New Philosophy of Universalism (see 3. below). Universalism lets the universe and Nature, and humankind's relation to them, back into philosophy in the tradition of Whitehead after a time when philosophy was mainly about logic and language. He arrived at this comprehensive statement by approaching Universalism through essays, which form his first two philosophical works, The Universe and the Light and The One and the Many. In these works  Nicholas Hagger carries the vision at the heart of The Fire and the Stones into philosophy and  presents Universalism as the heir to Existentialism. The World Government offers a blueprint for a World State as an expression of political Universalism in the tradition of Plato and Kant.

1. The Universe and the Light

A New View of the Universe and Reality

Published by Element in 1993

The Universe and the Light has three parts:

Universalism returns philosophy to its pre-Socratic roots in the thinking of Heracleitus and Parmenides (c.500 BC) and follows the empirical metaphysical tradition of Plato, Leibniz and Kant, who attempted to create models of reality in terms of which every element of human experience can be interpreted.  This tradition was kept alive in the early 20th century by Bergson (the philosopher of Vitalism), Whitehead, Husserl, T.E.Hulme and others before being curtailed by the Vienna Circle whose philosophers arbitrarily disqualified metaphysics in favour of linguistic analysis and logical positivism.  They were not interested in revealing the Reality behind the universe.

In Greater Detail

 In our time, materialists (cosmologists such as Hawking, neo-Darwinian biologists such as Dawkins and deconstructionist philosophers such as Derrida) have excluded the spiritual and divine as mysticism.  Their view reduces man to an accidental and futile collection of atoms, cells and neurons.  A bleak reductionism holds sway in the universities and primacy in physics, cosmology, biology, physiology, psychology and philosophy.  Nicholas Hagger’s revolutionary approach liberates these disciplines and unites them with mysticism, metaphysics, religion and history.  Advocating (with Bergson) a new metaphysical science, he achieves a marriage between physics and metaphysics that restores man’s uniqueness and purpose and undoes the reduction of man.

Nicholas Hagger has launched a Metaphysical Revolution in all the sciences and philosophy.  Here is a challenge to 150 years of reductionist materialism in many disciplines and to 90 years of analytic and linguistic philosophy.  When the universe is seen in terms of the Light, a true Theory of Everything becomes possible, a metaphysical holistic approach which includes the influx of divine wisdom, understanding, love and healing.  Here is a revolutionary view of man, the universe and everything from a new philosopher who has replaced Existentialism with Universalism, a new philosophy which asserts that the universal energy of the Light manifests into the universe and guides man’s soul or universal being with great universality, an experience which is central to all religions.

The Universe and the Light defines a new philosophy.  It retrieves the Vitalist tradition in philosophy by explaining the nature of the metaphysical Fire or Light and the origin of the Universe.  It challenges the sceptical and materialist scientific philosophy of Stephen Hawking and presents Reality in terms of an infinite, self-aware, moving first principle which explains everything.  The book’s unitive vision linked the individual to the greater Whole and was hailed as an important antidote to the bleak reductionism of modern philosophical thought.

There are many who specialise, but few who can cross boundaries and relate disciplines with such authority as Nicholas Hagger.  Not since Coleridge, Matthew Arnold and T.S. Eliot has a reflective writer who is also a poet probed the underlying cultural unity of our civilization with breadth and depth, to reveal the hidden but manifesting reality within the universe which some call God.

2. The One and the Many

Universalism and the Vision of Unity

Published by Element in 1999

The One and the Many has three parts:

In The One and the Many Nicholas Hagger expounds the One metaphysical reality which governs, and reveals the unity behind, the multiplicity of Nature (i.e. the Many).  In the light of this principle he presents a Universalist view of Western culture for the 21st century, and advocates a renewal of the metaphysical vision that inspired our civilization. Calling for a revolution in thought and culture, he shows how secular humanism has led to intellectual stagnation and the loss of mankind’s high designs. 

This work questions the tradition of philosophy since 1910, when promising developments were obliterated by damaging materialistic philosophy, and through Universalism offers an exciting way forward for contemporary philosophy.  A philosopher who has thought deeply and sees the universe as a metaphysical reality, Nicholas Hagger is always thought-provoking.  He also confronts social and political problems, such as the spectre of world government, and whether if it comes it will be truly Universalist and hence benevolent, or merely an excuse for a new form of world Communism.

3. The New Philosophy of Universalism

The Infinite and the Law of Order

 Prolegomena to a Vast, Comprehensive Philosophy of the Universe

and a New Discipline

Published by O Books 26 June 2009

This book is Nicholas Hagger's main work of philosophy. It develops the thinking in his earlier philosophical works into a comprehensive philosophy of the universe.

It describes the world/universe in terms of One Reality, in terms of which every element of our experience can be interpreted.  (Whitehead said that the metaphysical philosopher endeavours to “frame a coherent, logical, necessary system of general ideas in terms of every element of our experience can be interpreted”.)

The book reconnects philosophy with the universe/Nature and will present the philosophy of Universalism as arising from the orderly universe of cosmology, physics, biology and metaphysical philosophy.  Universalist thinking has applications in the environmental movement, political world government, religion, history and culture.

The book restates, and redefines, the metaphysical principle in our time as an experienceable ordering reality and as a system of ideas.  It states the philosophy of Universalism in an accessible form.  It is a book for the general reader and seeks to integrate all the disciplines – history, philosophy, religion, literature, science and the study of consciousness – into a single vision.

This book gives a comprehensive and complete statement of  Nicholas Hagger’s philosophy of Universalism. 

4. The World Government

To be published by O Books 26 November 2010

In The New Philosophy of Universalism Nicholas Hagger outlined a new philosophy that focuses on the oneness of the universe and humankind, and its applications for many disciplines, including international relations. 

In this work of political Universalism Nicholas Hagger presents the long-yearned-for human dream of world government. In the hands of conquerors or self-interested élites concerned to loot the Earth’s resources to enrich themselves, this could be disastrous. But in the hands of a philanthropic body of experts and elected representatives this could benefit humankind by legislating to abolish war, famine, disease and poverty. 

Author of The Rise and Fall of Civilizations, Nicholas Hagger examines the alternatives, including global governance, and offers an ideal model, structure and vision for a supranational body of administrators and enforcers supported by experts in international law, and an elected Senate. Together they would operate as a higher tier of government than existing bodies, including nation-states and the UN. He explains how this tier could come into being.

This is an accessible and innovative work of modern statecraft that offers a blueprint for a democratic world state with legal authority to end wars, famines, disease and poverty while allowing civilizations to continue their development with local, regional autonomy. Motivated by philanthropic and humanitarian considerations, Nicholas  Hagger is concerned to set precise and realistic goals to maximise the world state’s effectiveness and to criminalise the plundering of resources by behind-the-scenes organisations run by self-interested élites. A challenging philosophical vision of a better future for all in the tradition of Plato’s Republic and Kant’s Perpetual Peace.

What people have said about Nicholas Hagger’s philosophy

“An outstanding and unexpected marriage between cosmology and its metaphysical counterpart.  Very impressive.”

Edgar Gunzig, Professor of Cosmology in the Department of Theoretical Physics at the Free University of Brussels.

“This attempt to bring together physics and the philosophical vision of the cosmos in a coherent whole is interesting and worthwhile.”

David Bohm, Professor of Theoretical Physics at Birkbeck College, London and author of Wholeness and the Implicate Order.

“I am an unashamed reductionalist and as such I regard holism as mysticism.”

Stephen Hawking, Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University and author of A Brief History of Time.

“Holistic concepts have a profound role in modern mathematics and physics, and need not be mystical; Hagger’s broad sweep over the holistic scene is not so constrained by scientific desiderata.”

Roger Penrose, Rouse-Ball Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University and author of The Emperor’s New Mind.

“Sums up the rise and dominance of reductivism to date admirably.  Drawn together like this, the story is startling: it will surely look so at some future time.  Challenging, serious and timely.”

Mary Midgley, Philosopher and author of Science as Salvation,  A Modern Myth and its Meaning.

“It is nearly 100 years since William James first warned against the reductionism which he saw increasing in the scientific and philosophic spirit of his day, the ‘but only’ element as he labelled it.  Even he would have been dismayed at the extent of the empire the element has established in all the disciplines he valued, and how much he would have supported all those who value the quality and range of a truly comprehensive modern awareness as Nicholas Hagger does in all he has written with a rare intellectual passion in all his work since The Fire and the Stones.”