F. H. Bradley facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
F. H. Bradley
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Francis Herbert Bradley
30 January 1846 Clapham, England
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| Died | 18 September 1924 (aged 78) Oxford, England
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| Alma mater | University College, Oxford |
| Era | 19th-century philosophy |
| Region | Western philosophy |
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| Institutions | Merton College, Oxford |
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Francis Herbert Bradley (born January 30, 1846 – died September 18, 1924) was an important British idealist philosopher. He is best known for his book Appearance and Reality, published in 1893.
Contents
Life of F. H. Bradley
Francis Herbert Bradley was born in Clapham, Surrey, England. His father, Charles Bradley, was an Anglican preacher. As a teenager, Francis read some of Immanuel Kant's famous book, Critique of Pure Reason.
In 1865, he started studying at University College, Oxford. Five years later, in 1870, he became a fellow at Merton College in Oxford. He stayed there for the rest of his life. Bradley is buried in Holywell Cemetery in Oxford.
During his life, Bradley was a highly respected thinker. He received many special awards and was the first British philosopher to be given the Order of Merit. His job at Merton College did not involve teaching, which meant he had a lot of time to write his philosophical ideas.
Bradley was known for his unique way of looking at philosophy. He believed that everything was connected in a single, unified way. He saw no real separation between logic, metaphysics (the study of reality), and ethics (the study of right and wrong). His ideas combined this idea of unity with something called "absolute idealism." Even though Bradley did not see himself as a follower of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, his philosophy was inspired by Hegel's way of thinking.
Bradley's Philosophy
Bradley did not agree with the popular ideas of utilitarianism and empiricism that were common in British philosophy at the time. These ideas were supported by thinkers like John Locke, David Hume, and John Stuart Mill.
Instead, Bradley was a main figure in a philosophical movement called British idealism. This movement was greatly influenced by the German philosophers Immanuel Kant, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Bradley, however, often played down how much these thinkers influenced him.
In 1909, Bradley wrote an essay called "On Truth and Coherence." In this essay, he criticized the idea that some beliefs are always true and cannot be doubted. Instead, Bradley suggested that we can test if something is true by seeing how well it fits together with other things we believe. This is known as the idea of "coherence."
Moral Ideas
Bradley's ideas about morality came from his disagreement with how other philosophers, especially utilitarians, thought about the "self." He asked a very important question: "Why should I be moral?"
He did not believe in individualism, which focuses only on the individual person. Instead, Bradley thought that our "self" and our sense of morality are deeply connected to society. He believed that our moral duty was to develop our "ideal good self" and overcome our "bad self."
However, he also knew that society alone could not be the only source of our moral life. For example, some societies might need to change and become more moral. These changes would need to come from standards that are outside of that society's current rules. Bradley suggested that people could achieve their "ideal self" by following religion.
His ideas about the social self are similar to those of other philosophers like Johann Gottlieb Fichte and George Herbert Mead. They also fit well with modern ideas that suggest people are not just individuals but are shaped by their connections to others.
Bradley's Legacy
After Bradley passed away, his philosophical ideas became less popular. Other philosophers like G. E. Moore and Bertrand Russell strongly criticized British idealism in the early 1900s. Bradley was also famously criticized by A. J. Ayer in his book Language, Truth and Logic. Ayer argued that some of Bradley's statements could not be proven true or false by observation, which was important for Ayer's way of thinking.
However, in recent years, there has been a new interest in Bradley's work and the ideas of other idealist philosophers.
In 1914, the famous poet T. S. Eliot wrote his PhD paper at Harvard University about Bradley's philosophy. The paper was called Knowledge and Experience in the Philosophy of F. H. Bradley. Because of the start of World War I, Eliot could not return to Harvard to defend his paper, so he never officially received his degree. Even so, Bradley's ideas continued to influence Eliot's poetry.
Books and Publications
- The Presuppositions of Critical History (1874) 1874 edition
- Ethical Studies (1876) 1876 edition
- The Principles of Logic (1883) Volume 1 / Volume 2
- Appearance and Reality (1893) 1916 edition
- Essays on Truth and Reality (1914) [1]
- Collected Essays, vols. 1–2 (1935)
See also
- Bradley's regress
Images for kids
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