BERNARD BOSANQUET AND SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY

The philosophy of Bernard Bosanquet suffers from the assumption that his is merely a pale imitation of the Bradleyan metaphysics of which he was an acknowledged disciple. Even on those rare occasions when this assumption is challenged, and Bosanquet's differences from Bradley are pursued, the differences in question emphasize Bosanquet's ethical and political concerns, and thus falsely elevate the self to the summit of his metaphysics. In part, it is this ethicist interpretation of Bosanquet's contribution to philosophy – a perspective he condemns as “one sided” (1921: 100–101) – that is responsible for the continuing renown of his The Philosophical Theory of the State(1923b), which is generally considered his most significant philosophical work. Ethical concerns are certainly not alien to Bosanquet's philosophy. His Gifford Lectures for 1912, The Value and Destiny of the Individual (1923a), for example, are expressly concerned with the finite individual in the “vale of soul-moulding”. Yet soul-moulding must be understood as following from the “bodily basis of mind” and the evolutionary adaptations forced upon it, as theorized in his Gifford Lectures of the previous year, The Principle of Individuality and Value (1912). It is in this work that Bosanquet's primary philosophical concerns are worked out, and his differences from Bradley made most clear, especially as regards the philosophy of nature and the “bodily basis of mind” (1912: 160–61), on the one hand, and the reality of appearances, on the other.