 |
Bernard BosanquetBritish philosopher, representative of neo-Hegelianism
Date of Birth: 14.06.1848
Country:  Great Britain |
Content:
- Bernard Bosanquet (1848-1923)
- Academic Career
- Neo-Hegelianism and Absolute Idealism
- The Principle of Individuality
- Epistemology, Ethics, and Politics
Bernard Bosanquet (1848-1923)
Early Life and EducationBernard Bosanquet was born in Rock Hall, Northumberland, England on June 14, 1848. He received his education at Harrow and Balliol College, Oxford University.
Academic Career
From 1870 to 1881, Bosanquet served as Fellow and Tutor at University College, Oxford University. He then moved to London and actively participated in the work of the Charity Organization Society and the London Ethical Society, while also lecturing for the University Extension movement. From 1903 to 1908, he held the Professorship of Moral Philosophy at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, and later lectured at the University of Edinburgh in 1911-1912.
Neo-Hegelianism and Absolute Idealism
Bosanquet, along with his friend and Oxford colleague F.H. Bradley, was a leading figure in the English school of absolute idealism. Their philosophy was heavily influenced by the ideas of Plato and Hegel.
The Principle of Individuality
At the heart of Bosanquet's philosophy was the idea that only within a whole, a complete and absolute system of things, do we find true reality. To consider something abstractly, out of its context, is to miss its reality. To understand an organ in the body, such as the stomach, we must see its function within the whole body. Similarly, to understand the body, we must consider its relation to the environment, and so on with each successive level of wholeness. Each level of wholeness is more intelligible, not so much in terms of size, but in terms of organization. Each is closer to a perfect system in which every part implies every other part. Bosanquet called such a system a "concrete universal" or an "individual."
Epistemology, Ethics, and Politics
In his most famous work, "The Principle of Individuality and Value" (1912), Bosanquet applied this system to the realms of truth, goodness, and beauty. Truth lies not in the correspondence of ideas to brute facts of perception, for such facts do not exist. Perception itself is a mental construction built upon the basis of sensation, and to the extent that this construction is coherent and comprehensive, it is truth.
On similar grounds, Bosanquet based his ethical and political ideals on the idea of self-realization. Reason itself is an attempt by a fragmentary experience to constitute itself as an organized whole. It cannot achieve this on its own but is an organ within the social organism, whose true purpose is to serve the community. Since the good of the community is the moral goal of each of its members, the laws of the community—even when they entail punishment—represent the "real will" of the individual. For Bosanquet, as for his mentor T.H. Green, political obligation arises from the necessity of the state for the common good; politics is applied ethics.
Accusations of totalitarian tendencies against Bosanquet are unfounded. He was a staunch liberal and internationalist. Bosanquet died in London on February 8, 1923.
