Later in his career, Bradley crossed swords with William James (who, however, greatly influenced Bradley's views on existence and reality) and with Bertrand Russell. His views were at their maximum influence during the first decade of the twentieth century, and the philosophical analysis of Russell and G. E. Moore arose largely in the attempt to refute them. Bradley's literary style has been much admired, notably by T. S. Eliot, who, as a graduate student at Harvard, studied Bradley in detail and wrote a thesis about him. Few if any other works on logic have been written with the verve, eloquence, and exuberant clarity of Bradley's
Principles, but
Appearance and Reality is less varied, and, from a stylistic point of view, much less successful.
Ethics
Bradley's Ethical Studies is the most Hegelian of his writings. There is much criticism in it of Mill and some criticism of Immanuel Kant. There are amusing skirmishes with Matthew Arnold and with Frederick Harrison, the English positivist. Running through the book is the idea that it is not for the moral philosopher to tell people what to do, but rather to dispel false views of the nature of morality and to provide an analysis of morality that can stand up to philosophical criticism.
This is a free page. This page contains 177 words. This
article contains 4,291 words (approx. 14 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Article with our Bradley, Francis Herbert (1846–1924) Access Pass.
