## 1. Life



Bernard Bosanquet was born on July 14, 1848 in Rock Hall (near
Alnwick), Northumberland, England. He was the youngest of five sons of
the Reverend Robert William Bosanquet by the latter's second
wife, Caroline (MacDowall). Bernard's eldest brother, Charles,
was one of the founders of the Charity Organization Society and its
first Secretary. Another brother, Day, was an Admiral in the Royal
Navy and served as Governor of South Australia. Yet another, Holford,
was elected to the Royal Society and was a fellow of St John's
College, Oxford.



Bosanquet studied at Harrow (1862-1867) and at Balliol College,
Oxford (1867-1870), where he came under the influence of German
idealist philosophy, principally through his teacher T.H. Green and
the work of Benjamin Jowett. (Green reputedly described Bosanquet as
"the best equipped man of his generation" [Muirhead 1935,
p. 21; McBriar 1987, p. 3].) Bosanquet received first class honors in
classical moderations (1868) and *literae humaniores* (1870)
and, upon graduation, was elected to a Fellowship of University
College, Oxford, over F.H. Bradley. While at University College,
Bosanquet taught the history of logic and the history of moral
philosophy; his only published work during this time was a translation
of G.F. Schoemann's *Athenian Constitutional
History*.



Upon the death of his father in 1880 and the receipt of a small
inheritance in 1881, Bosanquet left Oxford for London, where he became
active in adult education and social work through such organizations
as the London Ethical Society (founded 1886), the Charity Organisation
Society, and the short-lived London School of Ethics and Social
Philosophy (1897-1900). During this time he met and married (in
1895) Helen Dendy, an activist in social work and social reform, who
was to be a leading figure in the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws
(1905-1909).



While in London, Bosanquet was also able to engage in philosophical
work, and many of his major publications date from this time. Some of
them--such as *The Philosophical Theory of the State* and
*Psychology of the Moral Self*--were developed from
lectures that he gave to adult education groups. He was an early
member of the Aristotelian Society, and served as its Vice President
(1888) and President (1894-1898).



In 1903, at the age of 55, Bosanquet briefly returned to university
life, as Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of St Andrews
in Scotland. His health, however, was not good and soon he wished to
devote more time to philosophical writing. He retired in 1908 to
Oxshott, Surrey, where he nevertheless remained active in social work
and philosophical circles. In 1910, Bosanquet was appointed Gifford
Lecturer in the University of Edinburgh for 1911 and 1912. The text of
these lectures--*The Principle of Individuality and Value*
and *The Value and Destiny of the Individual*--serve as
the most developed statement of his metaphysical views. Understanding
Bosanquet's metaphysics, however, requires recognizing that it
reflects his earlier work in logic, ethics, social work, and political
philosophy.



The publication of the Gifford lectures incited a good deal of
critical reaction to Bosanquet's views, particularly in
metaphysics (e.g., on the idealism/materialism controversy and on the
nature of finite individuality), logic (e.g., concerning the status of
propositions and the nature of inference), and ethics. Despite his
vigorous participation in such exchanges, present throughout
Bosanquet's work is his desire to find common ground among
philosophers of various traditions and to show relationships among
different schools of thought, rather than to dwell on what separates
them.



In spite of the challenges to idealism from both within and outside of
the academic world, discussion of Bosanquet's work continued
through the early decades of the 20th century. He died in
his 75th year in London on February 8, 1923.



At the time of his death, Bosanquet was arguably "the most
popular and influential of the English idealists" (Randall 1966,
p. 488). He was the author or editor of more than 20 books and some
150 articles. The breadth of his philosophical interests is obvious
from the range of topics treated in his books and essays--logic,
aesthetics, epistemology, social and public policy, psychology,
metaphysics, ethics and political philosophy. For his contributions to
philosophy and to social work, he had been made a Fellow of the
British Academy in 1907, and had received honorary degrees from
Glasgow (1892), Durham (1903), Birmingham (1909), and St Andrews
(1911).



Bosanquet was one of the earliest philosophers in the Anglo-American
world to appreciate the work of Edmund Husserl, Benedetto Croce,
Giovanni Gentile and Emile Durkheim, and the relation of his thought
to that of Ludwig Wittgenstein, G.E. Moore, and Bertrand Russell is
significant, though still largely unexplored. Although F.H. Bradley is
today far better known in philosophical circles, in his obituary in
the *Times*, Bosanquet was said to have been "the central
figure of British philosophy for an entire generation."


## 2. General Background



Bosanquet's philosophical views were in many ways a reaction to
19th century Anglo-American empiricism and materialism
(e.g., that of Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, and Alexander Bain),
but also to that of contemporary personalistic idealism (e.g., that of
Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison, James Ward, Hastings Rashdall, W.R.
Sorley, and J.M.E. McTaggart) and organicism (e.g., Herbert Spencer).
Bosanquet held that the inspiration of many of his ideas could be
found in Hegel, Kant, and Rousseau and, ultimately, in classical Greek
thought. Indeed, while at the beginning of his philosophical career
Bosanquet described Kant and Hegel as "the great masters who
'sketched the plan'" (Muirhead 1935, p. 21; see
Bosanquet, *Knowledge and Reality*, p. vii), he said that the
most important influence on him was that of Plato. The result was a
brand of idealist philosophical thought that combined the Anglo-Saxon
penchant for empirical study with a vocabulary and conceptual
apparatus borrowed from the continent. Bosanquet is generally
considered to be one of the most Hegelian of the British Idealists,
though the extent to which the term 'Hegelian' is
appropriate or illuminating in describing his work has been a matter
of some debate (Sweet 1995).



More directly, Bosanquet's thought shows a number of
similarities to that of T.H. Green, his teacher, and to Bradley, his
contemporary. Bosanquet himself acknowledges that these similarities
are far from coincidental. He frequently admits his debt to
Green's works and, as late as 1920, he wrote that 



> 
> 
> since the appearance of Ethical Studies... I have recognized
> [Bradley] as my master; and there is never, I think, any more than a
> verbal difference or difference of emphasis, between us.(Letter to
> Lello Vivante, 27 March 1920, cited in Muirhead 1935, p. 262)
> 
> 
> 



There is, however, at least some hyperbole in such comments. Bosanquet
did not follow either Green or Bradley blindly (see Sweet 1996), and
there are important differences in his work. While he defended
Green's ethical theory and many of Green's conclusions, he
addressed a number of issues never dealt with in Green's corpus.
Moreover, while it is clear that Bosanquet considered Bradley's
work in metaphysics and ethics to have been momentous, this admiration
was no doubt influenced by the fact that Bradley's philosophy
and method reflected interests and an approach that Bosanquet had
arrived at quite independently.


## 3. Principal Contributions


### 3.1 Logic and Epistemology



Bosanquet's earliest philosophical writing was in logic; his
interest in the area continued throughout his career, and it was
initially considered to be the area in which he made his most
significant contributions to philosophy. 



The first published statement of Bosanquet's views on logic
appears in his 1883 essay, "Logic as the Science of
Knowledge." Here, one finds an explicit debt to Hegel and to
Lotze (whose *System of Philosophy* he was encouraged by T.H.
Green to translate and edit). Developed expositions of
Bosanquet's logic appear in his *Knowledge and Reality: A
Criticism of Mr F.H. Bradley's 'Principles of
Logic'* (1885) and in *Logic, or the Morphology of
Knowledge* (1888). (The main themes of this latter work were
recast in a short volume, *The Essentials of Logic* [1895].)
Bosanquet produced a second edition of his *Logic* in 1911,
adding a number of notes and three chapters dealing specifically with
pragmatist and realist criticisms of idealist coherence theory. During
the last decade of his life he engaged in a number of exchanges on
questions in logic, culminating in the publication of *Implication
and Linear Inference* (1920), which C.D. Broad described as
containing "the clearest and most plausible account" of
Bosanquet's views (Broad 1920, p. 323). 



For Bosanquet, logic is central to philosophy, but it is
'logic' in a broad sense. He writes: 



> 
> 
> By Logic we understand, with Plato and Hegel, the supreme law or
> nature of experience, the impulse towards unity and coherence
> [...] by which every fragment yearns towards the whole to which
> it belongs... (*Principle of Individuality and Value*, p.
> 340). 
> 
> 
> 



The "inherent nature of reason," Bosanquet adds, is
"the absolute demand for totality and consistency"
(*Value and Destiny of the Individual*, p. 9). Moreover,
logic-- which Bosanquet calls "the spirit of
totality"--is "the clue to reality, value and
freedom" (*Principle of Individuality and Value*, p. 23).
Not surprisingly, then, Bosanquet argues that
metaphysics--"the general science of
reality"--cannot be distinguished from logic--the
science of knowledge--any more than one can separate a result
from the process which produces it. 



Despite the connection between logic and knowledge, however, Bosanquet
denied that he was doing epistemology--in the sense of a theory
of cognition in which truth and reality are treated as independent of
one another. 



In general, there are three key elements to Bosanquet's logic.




First, logic is concerned with 



> 
> 
> the properties which are possessed by objects or ideas in so far as
> they are members of the world of knowledge. (*Essentials of
> Logic*, p. 44) 
> 
> 
> 



Everything that can be studied must be "asserted" in
consciousness and, thus, is ultimately the concern of logic. 



Second, Bosanquet writes that reality is 



> 
> 
> composed of contents determined by systematic combination in a single
> coherent structure. (*Logic*, p. 5) 
> 
> 
> 



To have a complete description of some thing, then, it must be
understood in its context and in its relations to other things.
Similarly, to say that a judgement is 'true', we must take
the system in which the judgement is bound up and then note 



> 
> 
> how unintelligible that part of our world... would become if we
> denied that judgement. ("Logic as the Science of
> Knowledge", *Works*, vol. 1, p. 302) 
> 
> 
> 



Bosanquet's view is best described, then, as a coherence
theory--though it is one that is concerned with more than the
formal consistency of the set of true propositions. 



Third, according to Bosanquet, 



> 
> 
> the true meaning of propositions lies always ahead of fully conscious
> usage, as the real reality lies ahead of actual experience
> (*Logic*, 2nd ed., p. x). 
> 
> 
> 



Our understanding of the world, then, is always incomplete.
Nevertheless, 



> 
> 
> experience forces thought along certain lines from partial to more
> complete notions. ("Logic as the Science of Knowledge",
> *Works*, vol. 1, p. 311) 
> 
> 
> 



Coherence, therefore, is attained by a dialectical, evolutionary
process. But this does not mean that humanity will some day arrive at
ultimate truth. 



Bosanquet's logic has been the subject of significant
discussion; the focus of this was, and still is, is the nature of
inference and the theory of induction. 



In *Implication and Linear Inference*, for example, Bosanquet
defends his long-standing view that inference is "every process
by which knowledge extends itself" (*op. cit.*, p. 2). It
is made possible by implication--i.e., the property of each
system whereby one can go from one part to all other parts. Standard
formal logic (e.g., linear inference or syllogistic) is only a limited
form of inference for, as Bosanquet reminded his readers, logical
principles are not part of some abstract real but are the expression
of the movement and life of the mind. 



Bosanquet considered induction as importantly related to deduction; in
this respect, his views are similar to those of Christoph Sigwart and
W.S. Jevons. To see specifically how induction and deduction are
related, one must start with Bosanquet's distinction between the
verification of a hypothesis and its establishment. In induction, a
hypothesis is "verified by the agreement of its deduced
conclusion with observed facts"; it is established only
"in proportion as we are convinced that the verified results
could not be deduced from any other principle" ("Logic as
the Science of Knowledge", *Works*, vol. 1, p. 329). But
then Bosanquet adds that "every verified result is pro tanto a
confirmation of any principles from which it is deducible"
(*ibid*.). Inference, then, is neither deductive (i.e., from
general principles) nor inductive (e.g., from instances or sense
data), but "systematic"--it proceeds from within a
whole or a system. Thus, knowledge does not exist as a set of isolated
formal propositions; all that we know is within a system. 



Bosanquet's view of inference and of induction had significant
consequences, not only for the then-contemporary understanding of
logic--by challenging the view that deductive inference is
"useless" (because those who know the premises already
know the content of the conclusion)--but also for the
'new' logic of Frege, as developed by Russell and
Whitehead, where judgement was separated from inference and
'linear implication' was the norm. It is perhaps for this
reason that Bosanquet's arguments incited not only a
wide-ranging critical response--particularly from the
'neo-realists' at Cambridge and in the United
States--but also the tantalizing remark by Wittgenstein to Moore
in 1914 (cited in McGuinness 1988: 199-200) that some of
Wittgenstein's (unsuccessful) Cambridge B.A. dissertation was
"cribbed" from Bosanquet's logic.



Although Bosanquet's logic follows, in many respects, that of
Hegel, it arguably avoids Bertrand Russell's criticism of
Hegel's logic--i.e., that it unconsciously assumes and
incorporates the faults of traditional logic. Indeed,
Bosanquet's defense of elements of classical deductive logic
against J.S. Mill's criticisms "made philosophy safe for
logic" and was, in large part, responsible for
"rehabilitating" logic in British philosophy, particularly
after the critiques of Locke and his successors (see Allard 2007). It
has also been argued (by Fred Wilson 2007) that Bosanquet's
views on logic and scientific method are close to those of some
contemporary critics of empirical accounts of natural laws, such as
Fred Dretske and David Armstrong.


### 3.2 Metaphysics and the Theory of the Absolute



Bosanquet's publications on metaphysics date from the late
1880s, but it was not until the early 1910s, when he was in his 60s,
that he published his comprehensive statement on the topic--his
Gifford lectures, *The Principle of Individuality and Value*
and *The Value and Destiny of the Individual*. It is important
to realise that it was only after he had developed his views in
ethics, social work, philosophical psychology, and political
philosophy, that his metaphysics took its final form. 



Bosanquet's first essays on metaphysics--"Is Mind
Synonymous with Consciousness?" and "What Takes Place in
Voluntary Action?"--focused on the nature of mind, and in
1893-94 he offered a course of lectures that became the basis of
his book, *Psychology of the Moral Self* (1897). Opposed to the
crude associationist and the 'push and pull' psychology of
empiricists (such as David Hume, J.S. Mill, and Alexander Bain) who
held that thought consists of disconnected, discrete data of the
senses, and the 'psychological habits' that arise out of
the contiguous relations of these data, Bosanquet argued that one
cannot separate the human individual from everything makes up its
world. It does not follow, however, that reality is not autonomous of
individual consciousness. Bosanquet writes that "everything is
real so long as you do not take it for more than it is"
(*Principle of Individuality and Value*, p. 240, see
*Logic*, Vol. 1, p. 273) (see Hamilton Grant 2015).



A key interest of Bosanquet was the articulation of a theory of mind
and will. In *Psychology of the Moral Self*, in a lecture on
"The Organisation of Intelligence", Bosanquet argues that
"[t]he psychical elements of the mind are so grouped and
interconnected as to constitute what are technically known as
Appercipient masses or systems" (*op. cit.*, p. 42). The
mind or self, then, is a multiplicity of such systems. Bosanquet
describes the mind, then, as "a growth of material, more like a
process of crystallization, the material moulding itself according to
its own affinities and cohesions" (*op. cit.*, p.
9)--a view which, he says, is implicit in Plato and
Aristotle.



In his Gifford lectures, Bosanquet moves beyond the discussion of mind
in order to focus on a principle underlying much of his philosophical
thought and rooted in his studies in logic--individuality. 



In the first series of Gifford lectures, *The Principle of
Individuality and Value*, Bosanquet holds that when we speak of
'the real' or 'truth', we have in mind a
'whole' (i.e., a system of connected members), and it is
by seeing a thing in its relation to others that we can say not only
that we have a better knowledge of that thing, but that it is, as
Bosanquet writes, "more complete", more true, and more
real. Since this whole is self-contained and self-sufficient,
Bosanquet calls it (following Aristotle) an 'individual'.
But because of its 'independence' and self explanatory
character or necessity, it is also a universal. The
'whole' is, then, what Bosanquet calls a "concrete
universal". This "logical universal as a living
world" he calls "individuality" or "the
Absolute" (*op. cit.*, p. xx), and the metaphysical
position he adopts is often referred to 'absolute
idealism'.



According to Bosanquet, the "mainspring of movement and effort
in [the finite] world" is "contradiction" (*op.
cit.*, p. xxviii). Nevertheless, as principles come into conflict,
a process of harmonisation also occurs. Terms are readjusted or new
distinctions are introduced, so that conflicting elements find a place
in the result. This process or method of meeting and removing
contradiction, characteristic of the growth of any thing, is what
Bosanquet calls the argument *a contingentia mundi*, and it is
through this process that we come to the Absolute. 



Individuality is the principle of value. Since individuality is
"logical self-completeness [and] freedom from incoherence"
(*op. cit.*, p. xxxi), Bosanquet holds that, in as far as
things are completely organised and have parts which confirm and
sustain one another, they have value; it is not a matter of whether
they are, as in utilitarian accounts, desired. 



In Bosanquet's metaphysics, there is no rigid line between
'nature' or the physical, and 'mind,' and it
makes no sense to talk of a 'transcendent,' as some kind
of 'supernatural' world (see "The True Conception of
Another World"; see also Mander 2017: 242). Bosanquet is clearly
opposed to dualism; he sees the mind as "a perfection and
cooperation of the adaptations and acquisitions stored in the
body" (*op. cit.*, p. xxv) and not a separate thing,
independent of the body. Bosanquet's anti-dualism does not,
however, lead to panpsychism--the view that all nature has
consciousness. (In this respect he appears to differ from F.H.
Bradley.) Still, he argues that nature is complete only through human
consciousness. Human consciousness serves, Bosanquet holds, as a
"copula" between nature and the Absolute. 



In the second series of Gifford lectures, *The Value and Destiny of
the Individual*, Bosanquet focuses on how his theory of the
Absolute bears on the nature and value of the finite (i.e., human)
individual. He does so, first, by saying something of the evolution or
development of the human person, as both a natural being and a being
possessing a self-determining will; then, by looking at finite beings
in relation to one another; and, finally, by showing how finite
selfhood can have stability and security. Progress in the development
of the human individual, Bosanquet suggests, is not serial nor should
it be seen as approximation towards a defined telos. The destiny of
the finite self is that it comes to recognise itself as an element of
the Absolute; it is in relation to this, Bosanquet says, that one sees
its value.



Some critics responded that Bosanquet's arguments radically
reduced or eliminated the value of the human person because, they
claimed, the "perfection of human personality" that he
advocated was not the development of a finite individual as a finite
individual. This issue was the focus of an important exchange among
Bosanquet, Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison, G.F. Stout, and R.B. Haldane
on "Do Individuals Possess a Substantive or Adjectival Mode of
Being?" (Bosanquet et al. 1918). Here, Bosanquet asserts that
individuals characterise the world "as permanent
qualifications"--but, at the same time, he reiterates his
view that finite selves are not "necessarily eternal or
everlasting units" (*op. cit.*, pp. 86-87). Still,
one may say that while Bosanquet's absolute idealism leads him
to reject certain conceptions of the self, he does not reject its
existence or its value. He simply denies that finite individuals are
wholly independent centres or ultimate principles of value. Extensive
scholarship by Mander (2005) and Sweet (1997a) suggest that
Bosanquet's case was stronger than Pringle-Pattison's.



Although Bosanquet described his approach as 'idealist',
he was aware that the term was broad and potentially misleading. In
work published after the Gifford lectures, Bosanquet took pains to try
to explain how his view was entirely unlike the subjective idealism
challenged by G.E. Moore's "The Refutation of
Idealism" (1903) and, in "Realism and Metaphysic"
(1917), Bosanquet suggested that his philosophy could be more
accurately described as "speculative".



Bosanquet pursued this issue of the character of his philosophy in
*The Distinction between Mind and its Objects* (1913) and in
the last book to be published during his lifetime, *The Meeting of
Extremes in Contemporary Philosophy* (1921).



In *The Distinction between Mind and its Objects*--which
dealt with common characteristics of American neo-realism and Italian
neo-idealism (specifically, that of Benedetto Croce and Giovanni
Gentile), and the relation of his own account to that of philosophical
realism and the neo-realists--Bosanquet argued that the terms
'idealism' and 'realism' are both vague and
misleading. There are, as he notes, different kinds of realism and
different kinds of idealism as well. Moreover, the terms are not
antithetical; in fact, Bosanquet saw some affinity between his
position and that of the realist Samuel Alexander. Nevertheless,
Bosanquet thoroughly rejected the views of such authors as R.B. Perry,
W.P. Montague, and E.B. Holt. He argued that, while aiming at
providing a comprehensive view of reality, this 'new
realism' restricts the place of mind and cuts it off from
physical reality. (For a recent mention, see Hamilton Grant, in
Ferraris 2014: 10). 



The very title of *The Meeting of Extremes in Contemporary
Philosophy* (1921) reveals Bosanquet's conviction that,
despite the apparently radical differences separating them, there is a
convergence both in aim and in result of the investigations of the
different dominant philosophical schools --for example, on such
matters as the reality of time, positive development in ethics, and
human progress. Bosanquet notes that, although there is a clear
disagreement among critical realists and absolutists concerning the
nature of 'the real', as each seeks a complete account, it
is led to positions that are characteristic of its
'opponent'. Bosanquet's own "speculative
philosophy"--based, he maintains, on careful analysis of
experience--complements both of the preceding approaches.
Bosanquet argued that, with a more reasoned understanding of progress
and a correct account of the nature of 'individuality' and
the 'unity' of reality (where mind and its objects are
seen together in a single context), the absurdities of the extremes of
idealism and realism can be avoided, and the opposition between them
can be overcome. 


### 3.3 Religion



Bosanquet's philosophical views on religion were in large part
influenced by early nineteenth century biblical
studies--initially, mediated through the writings of Green,
Edward Caird, and Benjamin Jowett.



The work of David Strauss, Ferdinand Baur, and others, at the
beginning of the nineteenth century, marked a turn in the scholarly
approach to religion and scripture, towards what is now called
'the scientific study of religion'. Religious experience,
sacred texts, and religious practice were now to be seen as phenomena
open to critical investigation and which could--and
should--be examined independently of one's religious
commitment, and according to the principles of literary and historical
analysis. Strauss and his followers challenged the tendency to equate
religious dogmas and creeds with original religious experience, and
they were particularly doubtful whether one could recover much
knowledge of such experience from 'events' recorded in
scripture.



By the mid-nineteenth century, this approach to the study of religion
had established itself in Britain, particularly in Oxford. Figures
such as Jowett and Caird, and others in the Church of England
'Broad Church movement' (such as Frederick Temple, Bishop
J.W. Colenso, and Thomas Arnold) argued for a more analytical and
rational approach to understanding religious belief--though they
were frequently criticised for this by Church authorities.



The distinction of practice from dogma and experience from creeds was,
however, also a feature of the evangelical movement within the Church
of England. Bosanquet, like many of his fellow idealists, was raised
in an Evangelical household; his later philosophical views, then, can
be seen as an evolution, rather than an interruption or contradiction,
of his early religious convictions.



Despite his conventional religious upbringing, Bosanquet was not an
orthodox Christian. While he did claim that religion was not only
central to one's life, but was that which made life worth
living, he held that, taken literally or at face value, many
particular religious beliefs are either incoherent or false. Bosanquet
notes that, in religion, "rationalism, curiosity, metaphor, and
deduction from metaphor, operate by way of distortion" (*What
Religion Is*, p. 68), and that, to help one read biblical texts,
one must engage in a hermeneutical enterprise, and "learn to
interpret" them--though, even here, he doubted whether
"the sacred books of a Church" can ever be
"understood in their actual meaning" (*Essays and
Addresses*, p. 132). Moreover, some religious beliefs do not mean
what many take them to mean. Bosanquet argues, for example, that, if
we examine the idea of God--who is often described as an
'infinite individual'--we will find that to attribute
'infinity' to a being would be inconsistent with
"every predicate which we attach to personality". Finally,
Bosanquet held that religious belief in general is not about some
supernatural being or transcendent realm, entering into our daily
lives. It focuses, rather, on what takes place in the world. His
analysis of religion and religious belief is, then,
'immanentist'.



Bosanquet distinguished religious beliefs about particular persons or
events from 'religion' (or, what was the same thing for
him, 'faith' or 'religious consciousness').
Still, he did not see himself as either an agnostic or atheist, or as
reducing 'religion' to the 'ethical'. While he
states that there is much in Christianity that is no longer
intelligible, he insists that religion--in the sense of religious
consciousness--is needed for morality, and that an ethics cut off
from religion is "without sap or life". Similarly,
Bosanquet's opposition to seeing religion or religious belief as
a faith in something supernatural does not mean that he denied the
existence of the spiritual or held a reductionist view of reality.
When it comes to human consciousness, he argued, the
spiritual--the 'inward' transfiguration of the
'outward' aspects of life--is at least as much a part
of what exists as the visible and material. This
'infinite' here is what Bosanquet called the
'Absolute'.



Human beings are, Bosanquet noted, aware of something infinite that
bears directly on their lives, and in his entry on Philosophy of
Religion, for J.M. Baldwin's *Dictionary of Philosophy and
Psychology* (1902), he writes that it is this awareness, and
one's commitment to 



> 
> 
> that set of objects, habits, and convictions, whatever it might prove
> to be, which [one] would rather die for than abandon, or at least
> would feel himself excommunicated from humanity if he did abandon 
> 
> 
> 



that constitutes what religion is (*Collected Works*, vol. 1,
p. 33). (While some idealists, such as Pringle-Pattison, seem to have
held that such an Absolute is God, Bosanquet did not--though
neither does he explicitly reject the existence of God.) Still,
religious belief is neither the same as, nor tied essentially to,
rituals and practices. Neither does it require adherence or assent to
a set of propositions or dogmas--and certainly not to a set of
propositions focusing on beings or events in the history of a
community of believers. Religious belief is, in short, quite distinct
from theism. In this, Bosanquet brings to completion views
characteristic of many of the nineteenth-century British idealist
philosophers (see Sweet 2014).



While one finds religious belief and religious consciousness
throughout history and throughout the world, Bosanquet rejects the
view that all religions are on a par. Religious consciousness has
evolved, and higher forms of religion--i.e., those which show a
*unity* of the Divine and human nature--are the more
'true'. What Bosanquet is ultimately interested in, then,
is religion in its highest or most developed form--what Caird
called "Absolute Religion". Though Bosanquet does not
develop what, specifically, this means, his Gifford lectures give some
hint as to the direction of his thought.



Despite his criticisms of, and challenges to, Christianity, Bosanquet
believed that the world had benefitted from Christian civilisation and
culture, and that Christianity was a progress over earlier stages of
religion. Moreover, he not only frequently employed allusions to
Christian religious belief and practice to illustrate his general
views, but retained elements from Christian doctrine, such as the
ideas of the atonement and of justification by faith--though in a
highly modified form. The doctrines of the atonement (to which
Bosanquet often referred, using the words of Goethe, as 'dying
in order to live') and of 'justification by faith'
(which emphasised the presence of religious consciousness in
'works') have a practical rather than a doctrinal
significance. The former reflected the notion of
'self-sacrifice', involved in the achievement of
self-realisation--where one had to 'die' to the
desires of one's 'private will' in order to
'live' as a more complete moral agent. And the latter was
a reminder that one's actions could have a moral and spiritual
character only so far as they were carried out, out of a set of
"dominant ideas" to which one was committed.



Given his explanation of what religion is, Bosanquet holds that
religion is entirely consistent with reason. He insists that religious
belief as a whole is not superstition, and that it is true so far as
it is an expression of a "nisus towards the whole"
(*Principle of Individuality and Value*, p. 98). Again, since
particular religious beliefs purport to be cognitive, they must, at
least in principle, be able to be known by believers and non-believers
alike. (He is, however, sceptical about the relevance of traditional
apologetics.) In both cases, the standard that Bosanquet employs in
order to assess truth in religion is the same as that which he uses to
assess the truth in general--namely, coherence.



In his 2006 *The God of Metaphysics*, T.L.S. Sprigge endorses a
broadly Bosanquetian account of religion, but raises a number of
criticisms of Bosanquet's account--particularly concerning
its implications for ethics. Sprigge argues, for example, that by his
assimilation of evil into the Absolute, Bosanquet not only fails to
take evil seriously, but encourages passivity, assuming that evil is
either inevitable or will eventually disappear on its own. The claim
that Bosanquet's absolute idealism entails such an attitude
towards evil seems difficult, however, to square with
Bosanquet's concern for public welfare and interest in social
reform (see Sweet 2007). 



Though Bosanquet's analysis of religious belief reflects an
understanding that, broadly speaking, was shared by a number of his
fellow idealists, it is significantly different from other late
19th century and early 20th century
perspectives, such as those of William Clifford, John Henry Newman,
and William James, and can be seen as an alternative to them. Given
its immanentist character and insistence on separating religion or
faith from dogma and theology, it is close to the view of religion
that one finds in twentieth-century authors, such as R.B. Braithwaite,
R.M. Hare, and W. Cantwell Smith. Bosanquet's views, like those
of these authors, have been challenged (for example, by C.C.J. Webb,
Francois Houang, and Alan P.F. Sell) for not only being
inconsistent with any orthodox theism, but as presenting in its stead
a non-realist, generic religion (which, some critics hold, is not
religion at all). It is, however, important to recognise that
Bosanquet is not advancing a non-cognitivist or fideist view of
religion, and that he maintains that both religious belief as a whole
and particular religious beliefs must meet appropriate rational
standards (see Sweet 2000).


### 3.4 Aesthetics



Bosanquet's writings on art and aesthetics are not as well known
as those of the third generation idealist, R.G. Collingwood
(1889-1943) or of his Italian late contemporary Benedetto Croce
(1866-1952). Yet Bosanquet was the author of the first history
of aesthetics in English--described by Monroe C. Beardsley as a
"pioneering work" (1966: 14) that was the only
comprehensive study of aesthetics in English for half a
century--and he was referred to by the literary scholar and
Oxford Professor of Poetry, A.C. Bradley as "the only British
philosopher of the first rank who had dealt fully with this branch of
philosophy [i.e., aesthetics]" (A.C. Bradley, p. 570).



Bosanquet had a life-long interest in the arts, and his writings are
replete with examples and illustrations taken from them. He read
widely, particularly poetry, from the classics to the moderns, and for
several years served on the (London) Council of the Home Arts and
Industries Association. Among his early works was a translation of The
Introduction to *Hegel's Philosophy of Fine Art*
(1886)--to which he wrote an important introduction--and he
was the author of several articles on aesthetics, *A History of
Aesthetic* (1892), a series of lectures on aesthetics given to the
London Ethical Society (1895-96), and *Three Lectures on
Aesthetic* (1915). 



Bosanquet's aesthetics shows a debt to Hegel, to the Romantic
poets, to the Arts and Crafts movement, and to the philosophy of
Hermann Lotze (1817-1881). Bosanquet was particularly inspired
by Hegel's views on the function and the development of art, but
he was also influenced by the Romantic movement and its disciples
(e.g., J.W. Goethe, F.W.J. Schelling, and William Wordsworth--but
also S.T. Coleridge, Robert Southey, and William Blake), a movement
that, interestingly, Hegel had disparaged. The Romantics'
emphasis on unity, the importance of art as a form of self-expression
essential to the development of the self, and the organic conception
of nature all have an important place in Bosanquet's work. But
other Romantic themes were not adopted so readily. Bosanquet rejected
any emphasis of emotion over reason, and he acknowledged the
importance of limits to art and to artistic activity in general. 



For Bosanquet, art is revelatory of the 'spiritual'
character of the world, and aesthetics is important because it is a
disciplined attempt to understand how artists and artworks contribute
to this. Bosanquet's work in aesthetics focused on four
principal issues: i) the nature and evolution of aesthetic
consciousness, ii) artistic production, iii) aesthetic
appreciation--particularly, the experience of beauty, ugliness,
and the sublime in art, and iv) the role of art in the development of
character. Throughout, Bosanquet writes that he is simply following
Hegel's lead--though his work is clearly a development
rather than a repetition of Hegel's views. 



The first issue, aesthetic consciousness, is discussed at length in
Bosanquet's *A History of Aesthetic* (and, to an extent,
in his introductory essay to *The Introduction to Hegel's
Philosophy of Fine Art*). In *A History of Aesthetic*, for
example, Bosanquet describes the gradual recognition, over the course
of European history, of art as a synthesis of content and expression.
He traces the continuity and 'interruption' in the
understanding of art and the beautiful, from the classical Greek model
(with its idea that "art... is symbolic"), through the
middle ages, to the beginnings of a concrete synthesis in Schiller and
Goethe, and then towards a "synthesis of content and expression
in that 'characteristic' which overmasters the mind and
feeling" (*History of Aesthetic*, p. 458) which he finds
in Ruskin's analysis of "the penetrative
imagination". While Hegel had earlier held that there was a
development in consciousness over time--that at one point
includes aesthetic consciousness--Bosanquet was not committed to
the Hegelian claim that aesthetic consciousness developed
dialectically. 



For Bosanquet, aesthetics is importantly connected to metaphysics;
understanding art and the work of the artist requires a broader
metaphysical and logical theory. (It is this relation between the
metaphysical and the aesthetic, developed in Bosanquet's later
writings, that led Dorothy Emmet to write that Bosanquet's
*Three Lectures on Aesthetic* was his "most successful
book" [Emmet 1998: 28].) For Bosanquet, aesthetic experience was
characteristic of the higher experiences we have that give us insight
into the full nature of reality, and features of such experiences were
features that one also finds in logic and metaphysics. Art, then, can
help not only in understanding other aspects of the world, but by
revealing something of the "spiritual" character of the
world. 



The second major issue that Bosanquet focused on was what is--and
what is involved in the production of--a work of art. Here, too,
Bosanquet's treatment of this topic goes beyond Hegel's;
it also anticipates elements later found in Collingwood and Croce.




The creation of a work of art, according to Bosanquet, is an
expression of spirit or feeling; some see Bosanquet as articulating a
nascent expression theory of art. Yet Bosanquet held that there is
also a content communicated in a work of art, and so it is
"representative" (*Three Lectures*, p.
57)--not in the sense of copying a natural object, but as
embodying the 'soul' or essence of an object or a feeling
in a new medium. (Here, Bosanquet is clearly influenced by
Hegel's view that beauty exists when the Idea is embodied in
sensuous form.) While artists have some preconception of the effect
they wish to produce in the work of art, they also learn as they
engage in the activity itself. A work of art, then, is a product of a
process of expression, but this expression must normally be completed
in an object in the 'physical' world. Thus, Bosanquet
insists, while a work of art originates in the subjective, it is also
something objective. He writes: 



> 
> 
> Feeling, [...] in order to be capable of utterance in determinate
> form, must take on an objective character. (*Value and Destiny of
> the Individual*, p. 43) 
> 
> 
> 



While some have suggested that Bosanquet's account of the
embodiment of a feeling in a work of art is unclear (Kobayashi 2009:
166), Bosanquet would likely reply that such a concern is addressed by
his view that a work of art is a "concrete
universal"--that it possesses an organisation and a unity
that shows a relation of interdependence among its parts, and it
presents certain general principles in a concrete form. 



The third principal issue that concerned Bosanquet is what happens
when a person encounters a work of art, i.e., aesthetic appreciation.
In his *Three Lectures on Aesthetic*, Bosanquet analyses the
"aesthetic attitude" which, he says, is an activity not of
the mind alone, but of the whole
person--"body-and-mind". (This issue of the connexion
of body and mind is discussed at length in Lecture V of *The
Principle of Individuality and Value*.) Although Bosanquet is an
idealist, he is an objective idealist, and holds that, like
perception, aesthetic experience involves the whole person. 



On Bosanquet's view, the aesthetic attitude is
"contemplative"--it is a "preoccupation with a
pleasant feeling, embodied in an object which can be
contemplated" (*Three Lectures*, p. 10). But the work of
art is also something in which the spectator finds his or her feelings
"expressed". Bosanquet writes that when we
"imaginatively contemplate" an art object, we are
"able [...] to live in it as an embodiment of our
feeling" (*Three Lectures*, p. 30); there is no ultimate
distinction between art and the feelings it evokes in us. Moreover,
the appreciation of a work of art requires understanding it as a whole
or as a unity--and so it must be organisational. This
organisational character refers not only to elements or features
within the art object itself, but to the environment in which the work
comes to be. Further, Bosanquet argued that art (and aesthetic
consciousness) have their basis only in a community. Art, then, is
social and public--so far as both the artist and the spectator
are epistemically dependent on the communities in which they live.




Bosanquet's discussion of aesthetic appreciation in the
*Three Lectures* also addressed such questions as the forms of
aesthetic satisfaction and the different "kinds" of
beauty--beauty being understood as more than what is
aesthetically pleasing. It is here that most of the critical attention
to his work (e.g., by John Dewey 1893) has been focussed. Bosanquet
argues that while beauty is sometimes
"easy"--accessible to and recognisable by
all--the excellence of certain beautiful items may be evident
only to those possessing "aesthetic insight". Because of
the "intricacy" or complexity of the components of a work
of art, some might consider an aesthetically excellent object to be an
ugly one. This, Bosanquet writes, is a mistake. Ugliness is, Bosanquet
argues, strictly speaking a failure in expression. Ugliness in art
must not be confused with "difficult art"--i.e., art
that is beautiful, though many may fail to appreciate it. (For a
recent discussion of 'difficulty' in art, see Perricone
2018.) 



Bosanquet's fourth principal concern in aesthetics was with the
role of art in the development of character. In several early essays
(from 1886 to 1890), he emphasised how art leads to an expansion of
the self--of the artist, in creating the work of art, but also of
the spectator, in appreciating the work. (Bosanquet followed William
Morris and John Ruskin in holding that this result follows as much
from "artistic handiwork" as from "fine art".)
In the short term, aesthetic appreciation leads to a greater ability
to appreciate not only art but life. But, as indicated earlier,
Bosanquet also maintains that in the long term--here, agreeing
with Hegel--art is a vehicle for the recognition of insights
concerning the unity of reality, and for an experience of something
greater than ourselves. 



While Bosanquet's aesthetics is close to the expression theory
associated with Collingwood and Croce, and while there is a continuity
between Bosanquet's work and Collingwood's early studies
in aesthetics, Bosanquet was a sharp critic of Croce. Bosanquet holds
that any adequate aesthetic theory must leave room for externality in
art, and so he thinks that any theory that calls into question
"the reality of the external world"--which he
believes Croce's does--cannot provide an accurate portrayal
of the unity of the world. Bosanquet also challenges, for example, the
claim that art is prior to the conceptual and the philosophical. He
argues that Croce ignores that "the aesthetic attitude is
learnt" ("Croce's aesthetic", in
Collected Works, Vol. 1, p. 113), and that if language is just
expression, not only are logic and conceptual meaning are excluded
from it, but we get a metaphysical "singleness" without
substance, content, or "definite meaning". Finally,
Bosanquet writes that Croce fails to provide an adequate statement of
the relation between the aesthetic, nature, and the metaphysical. By
restricting the aesthetic to the realm of art, Croce ignores the role
that the beauty of nature has in calling us "out of
ourselves" and to the recognition of what is real. 



Bosanquet's account of the production of the work of art and the
nature of aesthetic appreciation is arguably an advance on Hegel, not
only in the understanding of art and aesthetic experience as something
more than a prelude to Religion, but in re-situating them within the
history of the development of consciousness. (Consequently, he denied
what he saw to be the Crocean interpretation of Hegel: that, at some
point, art--as uniquely expressing certain truths--would
cease to have a function, and be superseded by another form of
consciousness.) Moreover, Bosanquet's view that art is an
expression of emotion--later articulated and developed by Croce
and Collingwood--may nevertheless be able to avoid some of the
criticisms raised against these later formulations. While Kobayashi
has argued that this account fails to explain how the aesthetic
sentiment or feeling can be shared by the artist and spectators (2009:
166), Bosanquet would likely respond that an explanation is to be
found in his account of the work of art as a concrete universal. Some
studies (e.g., by Morigi 2001) have suggested that there are insights
within Bosanquet's work that warrant further investigation of
idealist aesthetics, and others argue that Bosanquet's analyses
of aesthetic judgement and aesthetic consciousness may plausibly bear
on other fields (e.g., politics) concerning matters related to self
consciousness and our relations to other persons. 


### 3.5 Social, Political, and Legal Philosophy



Bosanquet's social and political philosophy is called
'idealist' because of his view that social relations and
institutions were not ultimately material phenomena, but best
understood as existing in human consciousness. Writing largely in
reaction to the utilitarianism of Bentham and Mill and to the
natural-rights based theory of Herbert Spencer, Bosanquet's
views show both a strong influence of Hegel and an important debt to
Kant and to the classical Greek thought of Plato and Aristotle.
Indeed, Bosanquet often spoke of his political theory as reflecting
principles found in classical philosophy, and one of his early works
was a commentary on Plato's *Republic*. Nevertheless, his
political thought lies clearly within the tradition of liberalism.



The main source for Bosanquet's social and political philosophy
is *The Philosophical Theory of the State* (1899 [1923; Sweet
and Gaus (ed.) 2001]; See Sweet 1997b), though many of his ideas are
developed in dozens of articles and essays which he wrote for
professional academic journals, for publications of the Charity
Organisation Society and for the popular press. Like many of his
fellow idealists (notably T.H. Green, D.G. Ritchie, William Wallace,
John Watson, and, to a lesser degree, F.H. Bradley). Bosanquet's
principal concern was to explain the basis of political authority and
the state, the place of the citizen in society, and the nature, source
and limits of human rights. The political theory that he developed is
importantly related to his metaphysics and logic--particularly to
such notions as the individual, the general will, "the best
life", society, and the state. In order to provide a coherent
account of such issues, Bosanquet argued, one must abandon some of the
assumptions of the liberal tradition--particularly those that
reveal a commitment to 'individualism'.



Bosanquet saw authority and the state neither as based on individual
consent or a social contract, nor as mere products of a sovereign, but
as part of the natural development of humanity, and as expressions of
what he called the "real" or general will. On
Bosanquet's view, the will of the individual is "a mental
system" whose parts--"ideas or groups of
ideas"--are 



> 
> 
> connected in various degrees, and more or less subordinated to some
> dominant ideas which, as a rule, dictate the place and importance of
> the others [i.e., of the other ideas that one has] (Bosanquet 1893-94,
> p. 311). 
> 
> 
> 



Thus, Bosanquet writes that, 



> 
> 
> [i]n order to obtain a full statement of what we will, what we want at
> any moment must at least be corrected and amended by what we want at
> all other moments. 
> 
> 
> 



But the process does not stop there. He continues: 



> 
> 
> this cannot be done without also correcting and amending it so as to
> harmonise it with what others want, which involves an application of
> the same process to them. (1899 [1923; Sweet and Gaus (ed.) 2001]:
> 133) 
> 
> 
> 



In other words, if we wish to arrive at an accurate statement of what
our will is, we must be concerned not only with what we wish at some
particular moment, but also with all of the other wants, purposes,
associations and feelings that we and others have (or might have)
given all of the knowledge available. The result is one's
"real" or the "general will". Moreover, the
dominant ideas characteristic of this real will provide a basis for
shared understanding within the community and the state (see Sweet
2019). Some have argued that the possibility of such an understanding
provides a basis not only for how language is a fundamental element in
political community (see Grygienc 2018), but how it could be the
"medium through which reality is given concrete shape"
(Lejeune 2018).



Bosanquet sees a relation between the "real" or
'general will' and the "common good". He
writes that "The General Will seems to be, in the last resort,
the ineradicable impulse of an intelligent being to a good extending
beyond itself" (*op. cit.*, p. 127). This
'good' is nothing other than "the existence and the
perfection of human personality" which Bosanquet identified with
"the excellence of souls" and the complete realisation of
the individual. It is so far as the state reflects the general will
and this common good that its authority is legitimate and its action
morally justifiable. Bosanquet describes the function of the state,
then, as "the hindrance of hindrances" to human
development. (*op. cit.*, p. 189)



The influence of Rousseau and Hegel is clearly evident here (Sweet
1991). Bosanquet saw in Hegel's *Philosophy of Right* a
plausible account of the modern state as an "organism" or
whole united around a shared understanding of the good. Moreover, like
Hegel, he argued that the state, like all other social
"institutions", was best understood as an ethical idea and
as existing at the level of consciousness rather than just material
reality. Within nation states, Bosanquet held that the authority of
the state is absolute, because social life requires a consistent
co-ordination of the activities of individuals and institutions.



Still, although Bosanquet believed that the state was absolute, he did
not exclude the possibility of an organized system of international
law (see Nicholson 1976). The conditions for an effective recognition
and enforcement of such a system were, he thought, absent at that
moment--though he held out hope that the League of Nations
reflected the beginnings of the consciousness of a genuine human
community and that it might provide a mechanism by which multinational
action could be accomplished.



Because the state can be said to reflect the general will that
Bosanquet claimed is also each individual's real will, Bosanquet
held (following Rousseau) that sometimes individuals can be required
to engage in certain activities for their own good--that is they
can be "forced to be free". Moreover, he maintained that
it is in terms of the 'common good' that one's
"station" or "function" in society is defined,
and it is the conscientious carrying out of the duties that are
attached to one's 'station' that constitutes ethical
behaviour. In fact, on Bosanquet's account, it is primarily in
light of one's service in the state that a person has the basis
for speaking of his or her personal identity. Not surprisingly, then,
as Tyler (2006) points out, Bosanquet was frequently challenged by
those who claimed that he was anti-democratic and that his
philosophical views led to a devaluation of the individual. Such
attacks ignore, however, Bosanquet's insistence on liberty as
the essence and quality of the human person and his emphases on the
moral development of the human individual and on limiting the state
from directly promoting morality (which reflects both his own reading
of Kant and the influence of Green's Kantianism.) Moreover,
while Bosanquet did not hold that there were any *a priori*
restrictions on state action, he held that there were a number of
practical conditions that did limit it. For example, while law was
seen as necessary to the promotion of the common good, it could not
make a person good, and social progress could often be better achieved
by volunteer action. (It is just this emphasis that Bosanquet found
and defended in the approach to social work of the Charity
Organisation Society.)



Although the state and law employ compulsion and restraint, they are
considered to be 'positive' in that they provide the
material conditions for liberty, the functioning of social
institutions, and the development of individual moral character. For
Bosanquet, then, there was no incompatibility between liberty and the
law. Moreover, since individuals are necessarily social beings, their
rights were neither absolute and inalienable, but reflected the
"function" or "positions" they held in the
community. For such rights to have not only moral but legal weight,
Bosanquet insisted that they had to be recognized by the state in law.
Strictly speaking, then, there could be no rights against the state.
Nevertheless, Bosanquet acknowledged that, where social institutions
were fundamentally corrupt, even though there was no right to
rebellion, there could be a duty to resist.



It is in his discussion of the nature, source, and limits of state
action and of the nature of rights that Bosanquet introduces the topic
of punishment. Bosanquet considers the three dominant theories of
punishment--retribution, reformation, and prevention--and
seems to find all defective; some have argued that, like Green, in the
end Bosanquet does not offer a clear, consistent theory of punishment.
Yet Bosanquet writes that "[t]he three main aspects of
punishment [...] are really inseparable" (1899 [1923; Sweet and
Gaus (ed.) 2001]: 215). Punishment is the response to an act of a bad
will--and so it can be regarded as retributivist--but it
also has a properly preventive element, as well as a reformatory
character (since "the aim of punishment is to make the offender
good" (p. 206). The tension among these three theories has also
led to the question of whether Bosanquet offers a "unified
theory of punishment", and more recent scholarship, such as that
of Brooks (2010), Crossley (2004), and Sweet (2000), all argue that
there is a way of reconciling the different theories, though they
disagree on the specifics of how that can occur. 



Although Bosanquet is sometimes regarded as a conservative, recent
studies have pointed out that he was an active Liberal and, in the
1910s, supported the Labour Party. He insisted on the positive role
that the state can have in the promotion of social well being, he was
in favour of worker ownership, he supported Irish Home Rule, and,
during the Second Boer War, was initially sympathetic to Boer
independence (see Sweet [1997]: 233-234; for a nuanced recent account,
see Boucher [2020]: 325). It is also worth noting that
Bosanquet's audience was as much the professional social worker
or the politician, as the philosopher. He was well-informed of the
political situation in Britain, on the continent, and in the United
States. His interests extended to economics and social welfare, and
his work in adult education and social work provided a strong
empirical dimension to his work. This background supplied him with a
broad base from which to reply to challenges from many of his
critics--e.g., from philosophers, like Mill and Spencer, and from
social reformers, such as Sidney and Beatrice Webb and the founder of
the Salvation Army, General William Booth. Despite charges that
Bosanquet's political philosophy is simplistic, inconsistent, or
naive, Adam Ulam notes that *The Philosophical Theory of the
State* 



> 
> 
> has a comprehensiveness and an awareness of conflicting political and
> philosophical opinions which give it a supreme importance in modern
> political thought. Bosanquet is both a political theorist and a
> political analyst. (Ulam 1951: 50) 
> 
> 
> 



Colin Tyler (2002) argues that Bosanquet's political thought can
also provide a basis for the recognition of cultural diversity suited
to a liberal, multicultural society.



It has sometimes been suggested that the influences of Kant and Hegel
lead to a tension in Bosanquet's political thought (see Vincent
1982). Bosanquet's emphasis on the moral development of the
human individual and on limiting the state from directly promoting
morality clearly reflects a Kantian influence. Moreover, Bosanquet
believed that "the best life" that he describes as the
"end" of the individual and of the state alike,
approximates what Kant referred to as "the kingdom of
ends". Even Bosanquet's justification of the authority of
the state can be seen as a reflection of a Kantian imperative that one
wills the state as a necessary means to the moral end.


### 3.6 Social Work and Adult Education



Soon after his move to London, in 1881, Bosanquet joined his
half-brother Charles, and his friend and former classmate C.S. Loch,
in their work with the Charity Organisation Society (COS). This led to
a lifelong association with the COS--one with which Bosanquet was
indelibly connected. He was a Member of Council of the COS from 1898
until his death, serving as Vice Chairman (1901-1915) and as
Chairman (1916-1917). He also served on Administration and
District Committees of the COS and was involved in the operation (and,
from 1908-1912, served as Chairman of the Executive Council) of
the COS-sponsored School of Sociology and Social Economics from 1903
until its incorporation into the London School of Economics in 1912.




For Bosanquet, social work needed to be connected with education and,
by extension, educational reform. Through his cousin Mary C. McCallum,
Bosanquet learned about the Home Arts and Industries Association and
its role in practical education and, starting in 1891, he frequently
lectured and taught university extension courses for the London
Ethical Society (LES)--initially under auspices of the University
Extension Scheme at Essex Hall--and its successor, the
short-lived London School of Ethics and Social Philosophy
(1897-1900). Many of his publications, including *The
Essentials of Logic*, *A Companion to Plato's Republic
for English Readers*, *Psychology of the Moral Self*, and
*The Philosophical Theory of the State*, were based on or were
prepared as texts for these courses.



Bosanquet's lectures and essays on social topics deal not only
with general concerns on the role of social institutions and the state
in promoting the good life, but on specific questions dealing with
social reform. Many of these essays were published in the *Charity
Organisation Review*, but several were of a broad interest and
appeared in leading philosophical and sociological journals and books.
In *Essays and Addresses* (1889), Bosanquet advances an
"ideal of modern life" which he calls "Christian
Hellenism". There, in an essay entitled "The Kingdom of
God on Earth", he gives an analysis of the relation between the
human individual and the community that was taken up later in his
political philosophy. 



Particularly because of his COS work, Bosanquet was familiar with the
empirical data on what was called "the social problem",
and he made extensive concrete proposals for social reform; one finds
examples of this in *"In Darkest England" On the Wrong
Track* (1891), his discussion and critique of Salvation Army
General William Booth's programme for the alleviation of
pauperism, and in *Aspects of the Social Problem* (1895), a
collection of essays which he edited and to which he contributed six
of the 18 chapters. Bosanquet believed, however, that the key to
social progress was the development of individual character. It was
this focus on character rather than social conditions that brought his
views into conflict with a number of reformers, including the Fabian
social radicals, Sidney and Beatrice Webb. In particular, it led to
the accusation that Bosanquet's views were too individualistic
and out of touch with the root of the problem of poverty (see Hobhouse
1918: 78-79). This disagreement came to a head during the
sessions of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws on which both Helen
Bosanquet and Beatrice Webb served. Some commentators have noted that,
when one examines their specific suggestions on practical policy, the
differences between the Bosanquets and their opponents are more often
over strategy than principle.



For Bosanquet, education was not simply the acquisition of knowledge,
but of values; his involvement in adult education was inspired both by
his interest in bringing advanced formal education to a larger
population that had a more extensive life experience than the typical
undergraduate, but also by his views on art in the development of
character. While an adequate education requires having some
understanding of general principles, it also involves moral and
aesthetic values. In his early writings, but also in his later work,
Bosanquet is particularly concerned with how such values can be
inculcated.



In his two early essays on "Artistic Handiwork in
Education" (1887), Bosanquet argued for some form of handicraft
work being introduced into elementary and secondary education. This,
Bosanquet wrote, can contribute to the awakening, the enjoyment, and
the appreciation of beauty in nature and in art. Handicraft that has a
distinctively artistic character requires not only exertion through
the exercise of active apprehension, but also "seeing
deeply" into nature. Moreover, the study of works of art
provides a key to understanding both the culture and character of
other nations but also universal human values.



Similar views on education can be discerned in Bosanquet's
*The Education of the Young in 'The Republic' of
Plato* (1900), in his remarks on "How Could the Ethical
Efficiency of Education be Increased?" (1908), and in essays in
*Some Suggestions in Ethics* (1918). In *Some Suggestions in
Ethics*, for example, Bosanquet distinguishes between
"ignorance" and "stupidity". Ignorance is the
intellectual state of not knowing facts. But, more problematic for
Bosanquet, is stupidity--the "inability to see" or
the blindness to values--for it either distorts, or reflects a
distortion of, one's "ideas concerning facts, objects and
truths" (*op. cit.*, p. 236). For Bosanquet, then,
education should be primarily directed at improving character; it is
the remedy for "awakening interests and proportioning them to
values" (*op. cit.*, p. 237). This, however, requires
educational reform in schools--concerning the atmosphere or tone
of the school, the personality of the teachers, and the organisation
of work and play. Through the social activities involved in
participation--particularly of the young--in the arts or in
artistic training, Bosanquet believed that society can facilitate both
the appreciation of beauty and moral excellence. 


## 4. General Assessment



Interest in Bosanquet's work--as with idealism as a
whole--waned during the middle decades of the 20th
century. Of the idealists, the writings of Bradley and, in political
theory, Green, are now much better known. There is no simple
explanation of this; many factors seem relevant.



First, some of the work that made Bosanquet's reputation in his
time--his popular essays, the books and articles that came out of
his university extension courses, and his involvement in social
policy--now seems largely dated. Bosanquet's association
with the majority report of the Poor Law Reform Commission and his
alleged championing of the nation state, led many to see him as a
conservative if not reactionary thinker whose contributions to social
and public policy, and to political philosophy, were outdated almost
as soon as they had been published.



It has been suggested, as well, that some of the concepts central to
Bosanquet's work are problematic or not clearly defined, and
that several of his essays lack the logical rigor that one finds in
material destined for the more specialized audience of academic
philosophers. While insightful and wide ranging--and while
accessible to a much wider audience than the work of other idealists,
such as Bradley and J.M.E. McTaggart--Bosanquet's writings
lack the sharpness, the density, and, at times, the outrageousness of
those of some of his contemporaries.



It is also fair to say that Bosanquet himself was an indifferent
literary stylist. His work often betrays a looseness that one tends to
find in texts based on lectures prepared for general audiences or for
classes, and he wrote that "I usually rush my books, I get so
tired of them" (Muirhead 1935: 131). His early work on logic was
also remarked upon for its "stiffness" (*ibid*., p.
58). But these primarily stylistic issues may also be a consequence of
Bosanquet's refusal to sever philosophical analysis from the
experience which Bosanquet was trying to investigate.



There are other reasons that no doubt contributed to the decline of
interest in Bosanquet's work. By the early part of the
20th century, philosophical idealism as a whole was seen by
many as a philosophical dead-end, with figures such as G.E. Moore,
Bertrand Russell, and A.J. Ayer challenging what they saw as its
irredeemably obscure vocabulary, as well as its questionable
underlying speculative metaphysics.



Nevertheless, the influence and legacy of Bosanquet, and of British
idealism in general, should not be underestimated. 



One area in which today one sees a resonance or legacy is in political
and social thought; Bosanquet's arguments have been seen as at
least close--or even a preferred alternative--to the work of
some contemporary communitarians. Bosanquet's emphasis on the
importance of a common good, on the social character of the
individual, and on the fundamental place of substantive social ends
within a community, are echoed in the more recent writings of Charles
Taylor (1992) and Alasdair MacIntyre (1990). Other authors (such as
Gerald Gaus [1983, 1994, 2001]) see in Bosanquet's work a model
of a substantive liberalism.



A second area that is beginning to be explored is that of
Bosanquet's relation to philosophers of succeeding generations
in Britain, such as R.G. Collingwood and Michael Oakeshott.
Collingwood, for example, discusses Bosanquet's political
philosophy in his unpublished "Notes Towards a Theory of
Politics as a Philosophical Science" (see Connelly 2002), and
Oakeshott regarded *The Philosophical Theory of the State* as
"the only theory which has paid thoroughgoing attention to all
the problems which must be considered by a theory of the State"
(Oakeshott 1936).



Other areas that have been the subject of some recent study are
Bosanquet's views on religion and on logic. Bosanquet is known
to have had an influence on the 'social gospel' of the
English theologian and future Archbishop of Canterbury, William
Temple. More broadly, Bosanquet's emphasis on the moral, and not
doctrinal, character of religious belief is, as noted earlier,
reflected in recent work in the study of religion. While many accept
the standard view that idealist logic was problematic and no rival for
the later logic of Russell and Wittgenstein, it bears noting that,
given Bosanquet's view of the centrality of logic to philosophy,
he engaged and debated then-current developments in logic, such as
that of Franz Brentano, Alexius Meinong, and Russell. For example, in
the posthumously published *Three Chapters on the Nature of
Mind* (1923), Bosanquet closely examines Russell's account
in *The Analysis of Mind*, claiming that there were many points
on which both were in agreement, and that Russell's view was not
so much wrong as "too narrow". It has also been argued
that Bosanquet's views on logic and scientific method are close
to those of some contemporary critics of empirical accounts of natural
laws. 



Just as the recent exploration of the origins of analytic philosophy
have led some authors to look more closely at its relations with
British idealism, the intellectual roots of Bosanquet's idealism
also need to be more thoroughly explored. Though Bosanquet's
debt to the writings of Hegel and Kant is relatively well-known, there
were a number of other important influences on his work (see Sweet
1995). Perhaps the most significant is that of classical Greek
thought, and it is only recently recognised that Bosanquet's
philosophy cannot be fully appreciated without am appreciation of his
debt to Greek philosophy.



Finally, even as Bosanquet's influence, and that of British
idealism as a whole, diminished at home, they continued for some time
afterward in other countries of the English-speaking world. Thus,
aside from the 'third generation' of idealists or
idealist-influenced philosophers in Britain (such as Collingwood,
Michael Oakeshott, and Dorothy Emmet), Bosanquet's thought also
had an impact in English-language philosophy in Canada (with John
Watson), in South Africa (with R.F.A. Hoernle (see Sweet 2010),
A.R. Lord (see Sweet 2005), and Andrew Murray), and in India (with
Hiralal Haldar, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, and Benoy Ray) (see Sweet
2011). 



In recent years, then, there has been a renewed interest in
Bosanquet's work--particularly concerning his philosophical
and social thought. Given the number of studies published during the
past forty years on Hegel, Green and, more recently, Bradley, and
given the reevaluation of the significance of the work of British
idealism and its place in the history of philosophy, there has been a
steady reconsideration of the contribution of Bosanquet's
philosophy as well.