Richard Lewis Nettleship (17 December 1846 – 25 August 1892) was an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

philosopher A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...

Life

The youngest brother of

Henry Nettleship Henry Nettleship (5 May 1839 – 10 July 1893) was an English classical scholar. Life Nettleship was born at Kettering, and was educated at Lancing College, Durham School and Charterhouse schools, and gained a scholarship for entry to Corpus Chri ...

, he was educated at

Uppingham Uppingham is a market town in Rutland, England, off the A47 between Leicester and Peterborough, south of the county town, Oakham. It had a population of 4,745 according to the 2011 census, estimated at 4,853 in 2019. It is known for its ep ...

and

Balliol College, Oxford Balliol College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. One of Oxford's oldest colleges, it was founded around 1263 by John I de Balliol, a landowner from Barnard Castle in County Durham, who provided the f ...

, where he held a

scholarship A scholarship is a form of financial aid awarded to students for further education. Generally, scholarships are awarded based on a set of criteria such as academic merit, diversity and inclusion, athletic skill, and financial need. Scholarsh ...

. He won the Hertford scholarship, the Ireland, the

Gaisford Prize The Gaisford Prize is a prize in the University of Oxford, founded in 1855 in memory of Dr Thomas Gaisford (1779–1855). For most of its history, the prize was awarded for Classical Greek Verse and Prose. The prizes now include the Gaisford Ess ...

for Greek verse, a Craven scholarship and the Arnold prize, but took only a second class in '' literae humaniores''. Nettleship became fellow and tutor of his college and succeeded to the work of T. H. Green, whose writings he edited with a

memoir A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based in the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autobi ...

. He was fond of music and outdoor sports, and rowed in his college boat. He died on 25 August 1892, from the effects of exposure on

Mont Blanc Mont Blanc (french: Mont Blanc ; it, Monte Bianco , both meaning "white mountain") is the highest mountain in the Alps and Western Europe, rising above sea level. It is the second-most prominent mountain in Europe, after Mount Elbrus, and i ...

, and was buried at

Chamonix Chamonix-Mont-Blanc ( frp, Chamôni), more commonly known as Chamonix, is a commune in the Haute-Savoie department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of southeastern France. It was the site of the first Winter Olympics in 1924. In 2019, it had ...

Works

Nettleship left an unfinished work on

Plato Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...

, part of which was published after his death, together with his

lectures A lecture (from Latin ''lēctūra'' “reading” ) is an oral presentation intended to present information or teach people about a particular subject, for example by a university or college teacher. Lectures are used to convey critical inform ...

logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premises ...

and some

essays An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal ...

. His long essay ''The Theory of Education in the Republic of Plato'' was published in ''

Hellenica ''Hellenica'' ( grc, Ἑλληνικά) simply means writings on Greek (Hellenic) subjects. Several histories of 4th-century Greece, written in the mould of Thucydides or straying from it, have borne the conventional Latin title ''Hellenica''. Th ...

''. His thought was

idealistic In philosophy, the term idealism identifies and describes metaphysical perspectives which assert that reality is indistinguishable and inseparable from perception and understanding; that reality is a mental construct closely connected to ide ...

, embodying elements of

Hegelianism Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (; ; 27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a German philosopher. He is one of the most important figures in German idealism and one of the founding figures of modern Western philosophy. His influence extends a ...

but also, in its account of the

Platonic Forms The theory of Forms or theory of Ideas is a philosophical theory, fuzzy concept, or world-view, attributed to Plato, that the physical world is not as real or true as timeless, absolute, unchangeable ideas. According to this theory, ideas in th ...

(''eide'', ''idiai''), markedly influenced by a particular reading of the

Kantian Kantianism is the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher born in Königsberg, Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia). The term ''Kantianism'' or ''Kantian'' is sometimes also used to describe contemporary positions in philosophy of mind, ...

categories. Many saw him as a model and example of philosophical honest and persistent philosophical inquiry. This did not prevent the undergraduates of Balliol from a gentle parody in the 1880 Masque of Balliol:

Roughly, so to say, you know, I am N-TTL-SH-P or so; You are gated after Hall, That's all. I mean that's nearly all.

The inchoateness of Nettleship's philosophical thinking is more apparent in the ''Philosophical Remains'' than in the separate volume of lectures on Plato's ''

Republic A republic () is a "state in which power rests with the people or their representatives; specifically a state without a monarchy" and also a "government, or system of government, of such a state." Previously, especially in the 17th and 18th c ...

''. From that volume a definite view of the aims, limits and scope of Plato's text emerges clearly. Few historians of philosophy would now accept, however, Nettleship's view of the analogy of the Line (509e-511c, 534a) as involving throughout a temporal progression.See R. C. Cross and A. D. Woozley, ''Plato's Republic : A Philosophical Commentary'', London : Macmillan, 1964).

Selected bibliography

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Nettleship, Richard Lewis 1846 births 1892 deaths 19th-century English non-fiction writers 19th-century English philosophers 19th-century essayists 19th-century philosophers Deaths from hypothermia English essayists English logicians English male non-fiction writers Idealists Kant scholars Lecturers People educated at Uppingham School Philosophers of history Philosophers of logic Philosophy academics Philosophy writers Platonists

Life

Works

Selected bibliography

See also

References