F. H. Bradley

British absolute idealist — Appearance and Reality and the regress on relations

Merton College, Oxford · United Kingdom · d. 30 January 1846 (Clapham, Surrey) — 18 September 1924 (Oxford)

Elected in December 1870 to a Merton College fellowship with no teaching duties, held until his death, and lived there as a recluse for more than fifty years. Ethical Studies (1876) and Appearance and Reality (1893) made him the philosopher Russell and Moore rebelled against in 1898. Received the Order of Merit in June 1924 and died in Oxford on 18 September that year.

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Record

Life: 30 January 1846 (Clapham, Surrey) — 18 September 1924 (Oxford)
Country: United Kingdom
Period: Nineteenth century
Affiliation: Merton College, Oxford
Areas: Metaphysics, Ethics, Logic, Epistemology
Major works: Ethical Studies (1876)
The Principles of Logic (1883)
Appearance and Reality: A Metaphysical Essay (1893)
Essays on Truth and Reality (1914)
Key concepts: The Absolute, Bradley's regress, Internal relations, Appearance and reality, Immediate experience, Finite centres, My station and its duties, Degrees of truth
Influenced by: G. W. F. Hegel, Immanuel Kant
Sources: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Francis Herbert Bradley
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Bradley's Regress
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Bradley's Moral Philosophy
Wikipedia, 1924 Birthday Honours

Stories

On Philosophers

F. H. Bradley was better than the caricature Russell needed

Analytic philosophy tells its origin story as an escape from F. H. Bradley, the Merton recluse who died on 18 September 1924. But the regress argument about relations in Appearance and Reality was never answered, only bypassed, and the ethics of Ethical Studies anticipated the communitarian turn by a century.

F. H. Bradley

Culture Desk18 September 2026

This Day in Philosophy

Beardsley, Hayek and the day meaning slipped its author

On 18 September 1944 the University of Chicago Press published The Road to Serfdom in an edition of 2,000 copies. On 18 September 1985 Monroe Beardsley died. Between them they left two arguments that order and meaning need no single authorising mind — and the same date supplies the objections.