Bernard Bosanquet (; 14 June 1848 – 8 February 1923) 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 and

political theorist A political theorist is someone who engages in constructing or evaluating political theory, including political philosophy. Theorists may be Academia, academics or independent scholars. Here the most notable political theorists are categorized b ...

, and an influential figure on matters of political and social policy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His work influenced but was later subject to criticism by many thinkers, notably

Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British mathematician, philosopher, logician, and public intellectual. He had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, ...

, John Dewey and

William James William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher, historian, and psychologist, and the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States. James is considered to be a leading thinker of the lat ...

. Bernard was the husband of

Helen Bosanquet Helen Bosanquet (''née'' Dendy; 10 February 1860 – 7 April 1925) was an English social theorist, social reformer, and economist concerned with poverty, social policy, working-class life, and modern social work practices. Helen worked closely ...

, the leader of the

Charity Organisation Society The Charity Organisation Societies were founded in England in 1869 following the ' Goschen Minute' that sought to severely restrict outdoor relief distributed by the Poor Law Guardians. In the early 1870s a handful of local societies were formed w ...

Life

Born at Rock Hall near Alnwick, Bosanquet was the son of Robert William Bosanquet, a

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...

clergyman. He was educated at Harrow School and Balliol College, Oxford. After graduation, he was elected to a Fellowship at

University College, Oxford University College (in full The College of the Great Hall of the University of Oxford, colloquially referred to as "Univ") is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. It has a claim to being the oldest college of the unive ...

, but, after receiving a substantial inheritance upon the death of his father in 1880, resigned it in order to devote himself to philosophical research. He moved to London in 1881,'Britannica''
/ref> where he became an active member of the London Ethical Society and the

. Both were positive demonstrations of Bosanquet's ethical philosophy. Bosanquet published on a wide range of topics, such as

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 premise ...

metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...

aesthetics Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed t ...

and

political philosophy Political philosophy or political theory is the philosophical study of government, addressing questions about the nature, scope, and legitimacy of public agents and institutions and the relationships between them. Its topics include politics, ...

. In his metaphysics, he is regarded as a key representative (with F. H. Bradley) of absolute idealism, although it is a term that he abandoned in favour of "speculative philosophy". He was one of the leaders of the so-called neo-Hegelian philosophical movement in Great Britain. He was strongly influenced by

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 ...

and

Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ph ...

, but also by the German philosophers

Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and ...

and

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 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 ...

. Among his best-known works are ''The Philosophical Theory of the State'' (1899), his

Gifford lectures The Gifford Lectures () are an annual series of lectures which were established in 1887 by the will of Adam Gifford, Lord Gifford. Their purpose is to "promote and diffuse the study of natural theology in the widest sense of the term – in o ...

, ''The Principle of Individuality and Value'' (1912) and ''The Value and Destiny of the Individual'' (1913). Bosanquet was president of the Aristotelian Society from 1894 to 1898.

Idealist social theory

In his ''Encyclopedia'', Section 95, Hegel had written about "the ideality of the finite." This obscure, seemingly meaningless, phrase was interpreted as implying that "what is finite is not real"''The Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', vol. 3, "Idealism", New York, 1967 because the ideal is understood as being the opposite of the real. Bosanquet was a follower of Hegel and the "central theme of Bosanquet's idealism was that every finite existence necessarily transcends itself and points toward other existences and finally to the whole. Thus, he advocated a system very close to that in which Hegel had argued for the ideality of the finite." The relation of the finite individual to the whole state in which he or she lives was investigated in Bosanquet's ''Philosophical Theory of the State'' (London, 1899). In this book, he "argued that the state is the real individual and that individual persons are unreal by comparison with it." But Bosanquet did not think that the state has a right to impose social control over its individual citizens. "On the contrary, he believed that if society is organic and individual, then its elements can cooperate apart from a centralised organ of control, the need for which presupposes that harmony has to be imposed upon something that is naturally unharmonious." The relationship between the individual and society was summarised in Bosanquet's preface to ''The Introduction to Hegel's Philosophy of Fine Art'' (1886):

Works

Books

*''Athenian Constitutional History, as represented in Grote's History of Greece, critically examined by G. F. Schoemann'', translated by B. Bosanquet et al.(1878) *'' A History of Aesthetic'' (1892, second edition 1904) *'' Knowledge and Reality: A Criticism of Mr. F.H. Bradley's Principles of Logic'' (1885) *'' The Introduction to Hegel's Philosophy of Fine Art'' translated and edited (1886) *''Logic, or The Morphology of Knowledge'' in two volumes: '' Volume 1'', '' Volume 2'' (1888; revised edition 1911) *'' The Civilization of Christendom, and Other Studies'' (1893) *'' Essentials of Logic; Being Ten Lectures on Judgment and Inference'' (1895) *'' Companion to Plato's Republic for English Readers, Being a Commentary Adapted to Davies and Vaughan's Translation'' (1895) *'' Essays and Addresses'' (1889) *
The Philosophical Theory of The State
(1899)'' *'' Psychology of the Moral Self'' (1904) *'' The Meaning of Teleology'': A lecture read to the British Academy in 1906
''The Principle of Individuality and Value''
Macmillan, 1912. (

Gifford Lectures The Gifford Lectures () are an annual series of lectures which were established in 1887 by the will of Adam Gifford, Lord Gifford. Their purpose is to "promote and diffuse the study of natural theology in the widest sense of the term – in o ...

, 1910–12)
''The Value and Destiny of the Individual''
Macmillan, 1923. (Gifford Lectures, 1910–12) *'' The Distinction between Mind and Its Objects'' (1913)
''Three Lectures on Aesthetic''
(1915) * ''Social and International Ideals: Being Studies in Patriotism'' (1917) * ''Some Suggestions in Ethics'' (1919)
''Croce's Aesthetic''
A lecture read to the British Academy in 1919
''Implication and Linear Inference''
(1920) * ''What Religion Is'' (1920)
''The Meetings of Extremes in Contemporary Philosophy''
(1921)

Articles

* Review of Benno Erdmann's ''Logik. Bd. 1. Logische Elementarlehre'' (Halle: Niemeyer 1892) by Bosanquet in '' Mind'' (1892), N.S. No. 2

References

External links

*
Bernard Bosanquet – ''Encyclopædia Britannica''
1998 *

Archives Hub: Bosanquet Papers
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bosanquet, Bernard 1848 births 1923 deaths 19th-century British non-fiction writers 19th-century English philosophers 19th-century essayists 20th-century British non-fiction writers 20th-century English philosophers 20th-century essayists Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford Aristotelian philosophers British ethicists British male essayists British social liberals Cultural critics English Anglicans Epistemologists Fellows of the British Academy Fellows of University College, Oxford Idealists Metaphysicians Moral philosophers Ontologists People educated at Harrow School People from Alnwick Philosophers of art Philosophers of ethics and morality Philosophers of logic Philosophers of mind Philosophers of psychology Philosophers of religion Philosophy writers Political philosophers Presidents of the Aristotelian Society Social critics Social philosophers