George Holmes Howison

George Holmes Howison was an American philosopher associated with personalism, a philosophical school emphasizing the primacy of personality and consciousness. He was a proponent of idealism, believing that reality is fundamentally mental or spiritual. Howison's unique contribution to personalism was his assertion of the autonomy and uncreated nature of the free moral person, even positing that individuals are eternal and thus free from an infinite person. This perspective contrasted with some other idealist views of his time. His work contributed to the development of personalism in the United States, particularly through his influence on students and his philosophical stance on the nature of the self and reality.1