HOFFDING, HARALD (1843-1931), Danish philosopher, was born and educated in Copenhagen where he became a pro fessor in 1883. For }lading the chief problems of philosophy are (a) the problem of knowledge (the logical problem) ; (b) the problem of existence (the cosmological problem) ; (c) the prob lem of the estimation of worth (the ethico-religious question) ; (d) the problem of consciousness (the psychological problem), and these stand out in his best known works, the Hist. of Modern Philosophy (Eng. trans., 2 vols., 1900) ; The Problems of a Philo trans., 19o5), and Philosophy of Religion (Eng. trans., 1906). Hoffding himself is averse to metaphysics. In psychology he is an associationist claiming that synthesis belongs to the na ture of consciousness, and stressing the primacy of the will. His ethics, which is evolutional and teleological, is based on religion, the essence of which he regards as the reaction of mind to the sense of value.
Hoffding's other writings, which also exhibit his extensive knowledge of philosophy and science, include : Den engelske Filo so fi i vor Tid (1874) ; Etik (1876) ; Psychologi i Omrids paa Grundlag of Er f aring (ed. 1892) ; Charles Darwin ; Kon tinuiteten i Kants filoso fiske Udviklingsgang (1893) ; Det psyko logiske Grundlag for logiske Domme ; Rousseau and seine Philosophie (190 1) ; Mindre Arbejder (1899) ; Danske Filoso f er (1909) ; Bergson's Filoso fie (1914) ; Modern Philosophers (1915) ; Oplevelse og Tydning (1918), Spinoza's Ethica (1918) and Er kenntnistheorie u. Lebensauffassung (1926) ; Udvalgte Skrifter (Copenhagen, vii. bd. 1902 f oll.) .