F. H. Bradley
British philosopher
born Jan. 30, 1846,
Clapham, Surrey, Eng.
died Sept. 18, 1924, Oxford
Main
influential English philosopher of the absolute Idealist
school, which based its doctrines on the thought of G.W.F.
Hegel and considered mind to be a more fundamental feature
of the universe than matter.
Elected to a
fellowship at Merton College, Oxford, in 1870, Bradley soon
became ill with a kidney disease that made him a
semi-invalid for the rest of his life. Because his
fellowship involved no teaching duties and because he never
married, he was able to devote the major part of his life to
writing. He was awarded Britain’s Order of Merit, the first
English philosopher to receive the distinction.
In his early work
Bradley participated in the growing attack upon the
Empiricist theories of English thinkers such as John Stuart
Mill and drew heavily on Hegel’s ideas. In Ethical Studies
(1876), Bradley’s first major work, he sought to expose the
confusions apparent in Mill’s doctrine of Utilitarianism,
which urged maximum human happiness as the goal of ethical
behaviour. In The Principles of Logic (1883), Bradley
denounced the deficient psychology of the Empiricists, whose
logic was limited, in his view, to the doctrine of the
association of ideas held in the human mind. He gave Hegel
due credit for borrowed ideas in both books, but he never
embraced Hegelianism thoroughly.
Bradley’s most
ambitious work, Appearance and Reality: A Metaphysical Essay
(1893), was, in his own words, a “critical discussion of
first principles,” meant “to stimulate inquiry and doubt.”
The book disappointed his followers, who expected a
vindication of the truths of religion. While reality is
indeed spiritual, he maintained, a detailed demonstration of
the notion is beyond human capacity. If for no other reason,
the demonstration is impossible because of the fatally
abstract nature of human thought. Instead of ideas, which
could not properly contain reality, he recommended feeling,
the immediacy of which could embrace the harmonious nature
of reality. His admirers were disappointed as well by his
discussion of worship and the soul. He declared that
religion is not a “final and ultimate” matter but, instead,
a matter of practice; the philosopher’s absolute idea is
incompatible with the God of religious men.
The effect of
Appearance and Reality was to encourage rather than to
dispel doubt, and the following that Bradley had gained
through his work in ethics and logic became disenchanted.
Thus, the most influential aspect of his work has been the
negative and critical one because of his skill as a
polemical writer. Bertrand Russell and G.E. Moore, who led
the attack on Idealism, both benefitted from his sharp
dialectic. Modern critics value him less for his conclusions
than for the manner in which he reached them, via a ruthless
search for truth. In addition to original work in
philosophical psychology, Bradley wrote The Presuppositions
of Critical History (1874) and Essays on Truth and Reality
(1914). His psychological essays and minor writings were
combined in Collected Essays (2 vol., 1935).
