Francis Bradley English philosopher Date of Birth: 30.01.1846 Country: Great Britain

1. Francis Bradley - British Philosopher
2. Life and Career
3. Fundamental Principles of Bradley's System
4. Levels of Mind

Francis Bradley - British Philosopher

Francis Bradley was an English philosopher and a recognized leader of British Neo-Hegelianism for almost half a century. He was born on January 30, 1846 in Clapham, England. Bradley received his education at Oxford University, where he was elected a fellow of Merton College shortly after graduating in 1870.

Life and Career

Bradley spent his entire life as a recluse, bachelor, and bookworm at Oxford. He dedicated himself entirely to his writing and never gave lectures, taught, or attended philosophical gatherings. Occasionally, he would visit France, where he led a similarly reclusive life. Bradley had a serious interest in literature and was greatly influenced by his literary prowess. As a brilliant and merciless critic of empiricism, he seriously challenged its positions in British universities with the support of Green and Caird. The scholar was honored with one of the highest awards, the Order of Merit. Bradley is widely regarded as the most prominent representative of his generation in British philosophy. He passed away in Oxford on September 18, 1924.

Fundamental Principles of Bradley's System

The fundamental principles of Bradley's system correspond to the principles of the two main trends in idealism. On the one hand, he believed that to be is to be perceived (in experience): "everything that is not in any sense an object of sensation or perception is completely insignificant to me." On the other hand, he believed that the real is the rational. The criterion of truth or reality is the accordance with the demands of reason. Bradley does not spend much time proving the first point, as he considers it practically self-evident. He devotes a significant part of his works to the development of the second point.

Levels of Mind

According to Bradley, there are three stages, or levels, of the mind's life. For each of us, experience begins with the immediately given: in infancy, we do not distinguish or perceive anything as separate entities; at this time, there is neither self nor non-self - no explicitly distinguishable objects or qualities. Gradually, qualities group together and form what we call "things"; these things, in their relationships, constitute the entire familiar world of common sense and science - the second level of the mind. Can a philosopher consider this world to be completely real? No. In its examination, numerous contradictions are revealed, and what is contradictory must be rejected as unreal. In the first part of his major work, "Appearance and Reality: A Metaphysical Essay" (1893), Bradley rejects the entire world of everyday experience, including space and time, substance and causality, body and soul, on this basis. It is only in the final part that he undertakes its restoration. Bradley clarifies the meaning of the criterion he used in the first part, namely, conformity to intellect, and finds that this conformity consists of logical consistency. However, the only knowledge capable of possessing such consistency is a comprehensive and harmonious knowledge, in which nothing is omitted and everything is necessarily related to everything else. Bradley believed that the existence of such a world system is an unprovable but inevitable assumption of philosophy. He called this system the Absolute - the third and highest level of the mind. We may never actually reach it, but we can gradually approach it, and the degree of truthfulness possessed by any system of thought is measured by this approximation. In his work "Ethical Studies" (1876), Bradley proposed a similar criterion of progress in the sphere of moral life. Among his other major works are "Principles of Logic" (1883) and "Essays on Truth and Reality" (1914).