Bradley, Francis Herbert (1846–1924)

Francis Herbert Bradley (1846–1924) was the most distinguished exponent of British Idealism, a movement of thought that became dominant in Britain between the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, before being swept away by the rising analytic philosophy and, at a deepest level, by a general change of intellectual climate caused by the First World War. This entry discusses Bradley’s main writings chronologically, beginning with his epistemological reflections on the nature of historical knowledge (§1), his ethics (§2) and logic (§3), and eventually considering his metaphysics (§4), that part of his philosophy for which he is best known today. By reading the several sections consecutively, the reader should be able to recognise the mystical vein that pervades all his thought as well as the deep interconnections between the several parts of his philosophy (§5).