| Full name | Francis Herbert (F.H.) Bradley |
|---|---|
| Born | 30 January 1846 Clapham |
| Died | 18 September 1924 Oxford |
| Era | 19th-century philosophy |
| Region | Western Philosophy |
| School | British idealism |
| Main interests | Metaphysics, Ethics, Philosophy of history, Logic |
Francis Herbert Bradley, OM, (30 January 1846 – 18 September 1924) was a British idealist philosopher.
Contents |
Bradley was born at Clapham, Surrey, England (now part of the Greater London area). He was the child of Charles Bradley, an evangelical preacher, and Emma Linton, Charles's second wife. A. C. Bradley was his brother. Educated at Cheltenham College and Marlborough College, he read, as a teen, some of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. In 1865 he entered the University College, Oxford. In 1870, he was elected to a fellowship at Oxford's Merton College where he remained until his death in 1924. Bradley is buried in Holywell Cemetery in Oxford.
During his life, Bradley was a respected philosopher and was granted honorary degrees many times. He was the first British philosopher to be awarded the Order of Merit. His fellowship at Merton College did not carry any teaching assignments and thus he was free to continue to write. He was famous for his non-pluralistic approach to philosophy. His outlook saw a monistic unity, transcending divisions between logic, metaphysics and ethics. Consistently, his own view combined monism with absolute idealism. Although Bradley did not think of himself as a Hegelian philosopher, his own unique brand of philosophy was inspired by, and contained elements of, Hegel's dialectical method.
However, Bradley's philosophical reputation declined greatly after his death. British idealism was practically eliminated by G.E. Moore and Bertrand Russell in the early 1900s. Bradley was also famously criticised in A. J. Ayer's logical positivist work, Language, Truth and Logic, for making statements that do not meet the requirements of positivist verification principle, e.g. statements such as "The Absolute enters into, but is itself incapable of, evolution and progress."
In recent years, however, there has been a resurgence of interest in Bradley's and other idealist philosophers' work in the Anglo-American academic community.
Bradley rejected the utilitarian and empiricist trends in English philosophy represented by John Locke, David Hume, and John Stuart Mill. Instead, Bradley was a leading member of the philosophical movement known as British idealism, which was strongly influenced by Immanuel Kant and the German idealists, Johann Fichte, Friedrich Schelling, and G.W.F. Hegel, although Bradley tended to downplay his influences. Bradley's ideas are sometimes compared to those of the Indian philosopher Adi Shankara.
One characteristic of Bradley's philosophical approach is his technique of distinguishing ambiguity within language, especially within individual words. This technique might be seen as anticipatory of later advances in the philosophy of language.
Knowledge and Experience in the Philosophy of F.H. Bradley was the subject of T.S. Eliot's 1916 PhD dissertation, although he failed to take the viva voce.[1]
Bradley's view of morality was driven by his criticism of the idea of self used in the current utilitarian theories of ethics.[2] He addressed the central question of 'Why should I be moral?' [3]
He opposed individualism, instead defending the view of self and morality as essentially social. Bradley held that our moral duty was founded on the need to cultivate our ideal 'good self' in opposition to our 'bad self'.[4] However, he acknowledged that society could not be the source of our moral life, of our quest to realise our ideal self. Some societies for example may need moral reform from within, and this reform is based on standards which must come from elsewhere than the standards of that society.[5]
He made the best of this admission in suggesting [6] that the ideal self can be realised through following religion.
HIs views of the social self in his moral theorising are relevant to the views of Johann Gottlieb Fichte, George Herbert Mead, and Pragmatism. They are also compatible with modern views such as those of Rorty and Anti-individualism approaches.[7]