Bradley, F(rancis) H(erbert)

(born Jan. 30, 1846, Clapham, Surrey, Eng.—died Sept. 18, 1924, Oxford) British idealist philosopher. Influenced by G.W.F. Hegel, he considered mind to be more fundamental than matter. In (1876), he sought to expose confusions in utilitarianism. In (1883), he denounced the psychology of the empiricists. His most ambitious work, (1893), maintained that, though reality is spiritual, the thesis cannot be demonstrated because of the fatally abstract nature of human thought. Instead of ideas, which could not properly contain reality, he recommended feeling, the immediacy of which could embrace the harmonious nature of reality. He was the first English philosopher to be awarded the Order of Merit. His brother was the eminent poetry critic A.C. Bradley (1851–1935).

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