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Presuppositions in Bradley's Philosophy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 1963

D. L. C. Maclachlan
Affiliation:
Queen's University

Extract

Bradley always claimed that he was essentially a sceptic; and the fate of Appearance and Reality has been such that this claim should be conceded by every good empiricist. For does not Hume himself declare that sceptical arguments are arguments that “admit of no answer and produce no conviction”? To suggest that all Bradley's arguments fall precisely into this category is certainly to exaggerate, but the fact remains that on the one hand, many criticisms of Bradley have missed their mark, because the opponent has been under-estimated and misunderstood, while on the other hand, Bradley had few disciples and made few converts, even at a time when the philosophical climate was more favourable and less rigorous than it is today.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1963

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References

1 F. H. Bradley, Appearance and Reality, 2nd ed. (London, 1897). All page references are to this edition.

2 David Hume, An Enquiry concerning the Human Understanding, ed. L. A Selby-Bigge (Oxford, 1894), p. 155, n. 1.

3 Hume, p. 155, n. 1.

4 pp. 569–570.

5 Cf. Richard Wollheim, F. H. Bradley (Penguin Books Ltd., 1959), pp. 83–87.

6 Bertrand Russell, Our Knowledge of the External World (London, 1914), p.48n.

7 p. 568.

8 p. 569.

9 pp. 562–3.

10 p. 563.

11 p. 567.

12 pp. 32–33.

13 Cf. Richard Wollheim, F. H. Bradley, pp. 114–116, for a more detailed account of this criticism.

14 p. 563.

15 p. 554.