Francis Herbert Bradley

Francis Herbert Bradley 1846-1924, English philosopher. He was educated at Oxford, where he became a fellow of Merton College in 1876. His works include Ethical Studies (1876), Principles of Logic (1883), and Appearance and Reality (1893). In logic, Bradley attacked the psychological tendencies of empiricism by differentiating sharply between the mental act as a psychological event and its universal meaning; to him only the latter was the concern of logic. In metaphysics Bradley held that many phenomena considered real, such as space and time, are only appearances. Reality, or what Bradley called the Absolute, is an all-inclusive whole that transcends thought. Although greatly influenced by Hegel, Bradley's metaphysics is generally considered a highly original contribution to philosophical thought.

Bibliography: See his collection of essays (2 vol., 1935) and T. S. Eliot, Knowledge and Experience in the Philosophy of F. H. Bradley (1989).

Bradley, Francis Herbert (1846–1924), exponent of Absolute Idealism. His Appearance and Reality (1893) was the most original work in British metaphysics in the 19th cent. He argued that everywhere in the fields of natural science, ethics, religion, etc., contradictions are patent and that therefore these realms cannot be conceived of as reality. The only true reality is to be found in an all-inclusive experience, the Absolute, wherein all contradictions, including the gulf between subject and object, are transcended. Theism and personal immortality are rejected.