A species of absolute idealism, British idealism
was a philosophical movement that was influential
in Britain from the mid-nineteenth century
to the early twentieth century. The leading
figures in the movement were T. H. Green (1836–1882),
F. H. Bradley (1846–1924), and Bernard Bosanquet
(1848–1923). They were succeeded by the
second generation of J. M. E. McTaggart (1866–1925),
H. H. Joachim (1868–1938), J. H. Muirhead
(1855–1940), and R. G. Collingwood (1889-1943).
The last major figure in the tradition was
G. R. G. Mure (1893–1979). Doctrines of
early British idealism so provoked the young
Cambridge philosophers G. E. Moore and Bertrand
Russell that they began a new philosophical
tradition, analytic philosophy.
== Overview ==
Though much more variegated than some commentaries
would seem to suggest, British idealism was
generally marked by several broad tendencies:
a belief in an Absolute (a single all-encompassing
reality that in some sense formed a coherent
and all-inclusive system); the assignment
of a high place to reason as both the faculty
by which the Absolute's structure is grasped
and as that structure itself; and a fundamental
unwillingness to accept a dichotomy between
thought and object, reality consisting of
thought-and-object together in a strongly
coherent unity.
British idealism largely developed from the
German idealist movement—particularly such
philosophers as Immanuel Kant and G. W. F.
Hegel, who were characterised by Green, among
others, as the salvation of British philosophy
after the alleged demise of empiricism. The
movement was certainly a reaction against
the thinking of John Locke, David Hume, John
Stuart Mill, Henry Sidgwick, and other empiricists
and utilitarians. Some of those involved would
have denied any specific influence, particularly
with respect to Hegel. Nevertheless, James
Hutchison Stirling's book The Secret of Hegel
is believed to have won significant converts
in Britain.
British idealism was influenced by Hegel at
least in broad outline, and undeniably adopted
some of Hegel's terminology and doctrines.
Examples include not only the aforementioned
Absolute, but also a doctrine of internal
relations, a coherence theory of truth, and
a concept of a concrete universal. Some commentators
have also pointed to a sort of dialectical
structure in e.g. some of the writings of
Bradley. But few of the British idealists
adopted Hegel's philosophy wholesale, and
his most significant writings on logic seem
to have found no purchase whatsoever in their
thought. On the other hand, Mure was “a
deep student of Hegel”
who “was committed to Hegel’s ‘central
ontological thesis’ all his life.”.On
its political side, the British idealists
were largely concerned to refute what they
regarded as a brittle and "atomistic" form
of individualism, as espoused by e.g. Herbert
Spencer. In their view, humans are fundamentally
social beings in a manner and to a degree
not adequately recognized by Spencer and his
followers. The British Idealists did not,
however, reify the State in the manner that
Hegel apparently did; Green in particular
spoke of the individual as the sole locus
of value and contended that the State's existence
was justified only insofar as it contributed
to the realization of value in the lives of
individual persons.
The hold of British idealism in the United
Kingdom weakened when Bertrand Russell and
G. E. Moore, who were educated in the British
idealist tradition, turned against it. Moore
in particular delivered what quickly came
to be accepted as conclusive arguments against
Idealism. In the late 1950s G. R. G. Mure,
in his Retreat From Truth (Oxford 1958), criticized
Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and aspects
of analytic philosophy from an idealist point
of view.
British idealism's influence in the United
States was somewhat limited. The early thought
of Josiah Royce had something of a neo-Hegelian
cast, as did that of a handful of his less
famous contemporaries. The American rationalist
Brand Blanshard was so strongly influenced
by Bradley, Bosanquet, and Green (and other
British philosophers) that he could almost
be classified as a British philosopher himself.
Even this limited influence, though, petered
out through the latter half of the twentieth
century. However, from the 1990s on, there
has been a significant revival in interest
in these ideas, as evidenced by, for instance,
by the founding of the Michael Oakeshott Association,
and renewed attention to the work of Collingwood,
Green, and Bosanquet.
== See also ==
Michael Oakeshott
Timothy Sprigge
List of British philosophers
British philosophy
== Notes ==
== References ==
Sorley, William Ritchie. 1920. A History of
English Philosophy.
An idiosyncratic account of English-language
philosophy with an emphasis on idealism, later
republished as A History of British Philosophy
to 1900.
'British Absolute Idealism: From Green to
Bradley', in Jeremy Dunham, Iain Hamilton
Grant and Sean Watson (eds), Idealism (Acumen,
2011).
