British philosophy refers to thephilosophical tradition of theBritish people. The universities ofCambridge andOxford both have long philosophical traditions.
According to one author "The native characteristics of British philosophy are these:common sense, dislike of complication, a strong preference for theconcrete over the abstract and a certain awkward honesty of method in which an occasional pearl ofpoetry is embedded".[1]
According to American pragmatist Charles Sanders Peirce: "From very early times, it has been the chief intellectual characteristics of the English to wish to effect everything by the plainest and directest means, without unnecessary contrivance...In philosophy, this national tendency appears as a strong preference for the simplest theories, and a resistance to any complication of the theory as long as there is the least possibility that the facts can be explained in the simpler way. And, accordingly, British philosophers have always desired to weed out of philosophy all conceptions which could not be made perfectly definite and easily intelligible, and have shown strongnominalistic tendencies since the time ofEdward I, or even earlier."
Bertrand Russell wrote: "The British are distinguished among the nations of modern Europe, on the one hand by the excellence of their philosophers, and on the other hand by their contempt for philosophy. In both respects they show their wisdom."[2]
John Scotus Erigena (c. 800 – c. 877) was a mysticalNeoplatonist fromIreland, who translated and made commentaries upon the work ofPseudo Dionysius the Areopagite. He succeededCharlemagne's scholarAlcuin of York (c. 735–804) as head of the Palace School atAachen.Bertrand Russell dubbed him "the most astonishing person of theninth century".[3] TheStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy states that "He is generally recognized to be both the outstanding philosopher (in terms of originality) of theCarolingian era and of the whole period ofLatin philosophy stretching fromBoethius toAnselm".[4]
SaintAnselm of Canterbury (c. 1033 – 1109) was an important philosopher and theologian of the Catholic Church, who held the office ofArchbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109. Anselm is famed as the originator of theontological argument for the existence of God and of the satisfaction theory of atonement. Anselm's works are considered philosophical as well as theological since they endeavour to render Christian tenets of faith, traditionally taken as a revealed truth, as a rational system.[5]
Adelard of Bath (c. 1080 – c. 1150) may be the first philosopher from England. He tried to reconcile Plato and Aristotle, and is known as the translator ofEuclid'sElements, and also was one of the first to introduce theArabic numeral system to Europe.[6]
John of Salisbury (late 1110s – 1180) was one of the most notable figures of thetwelfth century Renaissance.[7] He was madeBishop of Chartres and advocatedCicero's moderate skepticism.
Robert Grosseteste (c. 1170 – 1253) played a key role in the development of the scientific method, emphasizing experiments.A. C. Crombie called him "the real founder of the tradition of scientific thought in medievalOxford, and in some ways, of the modern English intellectual tradition".[8]
Alexander of Hales (c. 1185 – 1245) was instrumental to the development of scholasticism. He wrote a commentary onPeter Lombard'sSentences.[9]
William of Sherwood (c. 1200 – c. 1272) was amedievalEnglishscholastic philosopher,logician, and teacher. Little is known of his life, but he is thought to have studied inParis and he was a master atOxford in 1252. He was the author of two books which were an important influence on the development ofscholastic logic:Introductiones in Logicam (Introduction to Logic), andSyncategoremata. These are the first known works to deal in a systematic way with what is now calledsupposition theory, and were influential on the development of logic in both England and on the continent.[a]
Roger Bacon (c. 1214–1294), also known as Doctor Mirabilis (Latin: "Wondrous Doctor"), was anEnglishphilosopher andFranciscan friar who was a pupil of Grosseteste and placed considerable emphasis on empirical methods. He is sometimes credited as one of the earliestEuropean advocates of the modernscientific method[11] inspired by the works ofPlato andAristotle via earlyIslamic scientists such asAvicenna andAverroes.[12][13][14]
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John Duns Scotus (c. 1265 – 1308) was an important philosopher and theologian of theHigh Middle Ages. Scotus was born around 1265,[15] atDuns, inBerwickshire,Scotland. In 1291 he was ordained as a priest inNorthampton,England. A note in Codex 66 ofMerton College, Oxford, records that Scotus "flourished atCambridge,Oxford andParis". He died inCologne in 1308. He is buried in the "Minoritenkirche", the Church of theFranciscans (or Minor Friars) in Cologne. He wasbeatified byPope John Paul II on 20 March 1993.
NicknamedDoctor Subtilis (the subtle doctor), he is well known for the "univocity of being," the formal distinction, and the idea ofhaecceity. The univocity of being holds that existence is the most abstract concept we have and is applicable to everything that exists. The formal distinction is a way of distinguishing between different aspects of the same thing such that the distinction is intermediate between what is merely conceptual, and what is fully real or mind-independent. Haecceity (from theLatinhaecceitas) is the idea of "thisness," a concept which denotes the discrete qualities, properties or characteristics of a thing which make it a particular thing.
Thomas Wilton studied under Scotus.Walter Burley studied under Wilton.Thomas Bradwardine was a follower of Scotus who withRichard Swineshead and others formed theOxford Calculators.[16]
William of Ockham (c. 1288 – c. 1348) was anEnglishFranciscanfriar andscholasticphilosopher. Ockham advocated nominalism.
He is perhaps most well known for his principle of parsimony, famously known asOccam's razor. This actual term is claimed not to appear in his writings,[17] but rather summarizes the principle he expressed in passages such asNumquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate [Plurality must never be posited without necessity][18][19] andFrustra fit per plura quod potest fieri per pauciora (It is futile to do with more things that which can be done with fewer).[20] Generally it refers to distinguishing between two hypotheses either by "shaving away" unnecessary assumptions or cutting apart two similar conclusions.
The words often attributed to Occam:entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem ("entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity") are absent in his extant works;[21] This particular phrasing comes fromJohn Punch who used it in describing a "common axiom" (axioma vulgare) of theScholastics.[22]
Ockham had followers likeRobert Holcot andAdam of Wodeham. They influencedPelagians likeThomas of Buckingham andUthred of Boldon. Ockham also influencedGerman philosophy.
John Wycliffe (1328 – 1384) was one of the last scholastics, and an important predecessor of Protestantism.[23] He was influenced byRichard FitzRalph.
There were Renaissance logicians likeJohn Sanderson,Richard Crakanthorpe,Thomas Wilson, andRalph Lever. At Cambridge,William Temple defendedRamus againstEverard Digby. Digby influenced mysticRobert Fludd and NeoplatonistRobert Greville.
Renaissance humanistThomas More (1478 – 1535) wroteUtopia (1516), which describes thepolitical system of animaginary island state.[24]
Richard Hooker (1554 – 1600) believed the world was governed bynatural law.[25]
Francis Bacon (1561–1626) was an Englishman who was astatesman,scientist,lawyer,jurist andauthor in addition to being a philosopher. He famously died of pneumonia contracted while studying the effects of freezing on the preservation of meat. He served both asAttorney General andLord Chancellor of England. Although his political career ended in disgrace, he remained extremely influential through his works, especially as philosophical advocate and practitioner of thescientific method and pioneer in theScientific Revolution.
Bacon has been called the father of empiricism.[26] His works established and popularized deductive methodologies forscientific inquiry, often called theBaconian method or simply, thescientific method. His demand for a planned procedure of investigating all things natural marked a new turn in the rhetorical and theoretical framework for science, much of which still surrounds conceptions of propermethodology today. His dedication probably led to his death, so bringing him into a rare historical group of scientists who were killed by their own experiments.
Bacon had a major influence on scientistRobert Boyle.
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) was an English philosopher, remembered today for his work onpolitical philosophy. His 1651 bookLeviathan established the foundation for most of Western political philosophy from the perspective ofsocial contract theory.[27]
Hobbes was a champion of absolutism for the sovereign but he also developed some of the fundamentals of European liberal thought: the right of the individual; the natural equality of all men; the artificial character of the political order (which led to the later distinction betweencivil society and the state); the view that all legitimate political power must be "representative" and based on the consent of the people; and a liberal interpretation of law which leaves people free to do whatever the law does not explicitly forbid.[28]
Hobbes also contributed to a diverse array of fields, includinghistory,geometry, physics ofgases,theology,ethics, general philosophy, andpolitical science. His account of human nature as self-interested cooperation has proved to be an enduring theory in the field ofphilosophical anthropology. He was one of the key founders of philosophicalmaterialism.
Hobbes influencedBernard Mandeville.
TheCambridge Platonists likeRalph Cudworth,Henry More, were an influential group of Neoplatonists.[29] They influenced the likes ofHerbert of Cherbury,Joseph Glanvill,Nathanael Culverwel andRichard Cumberland.
The three 'classic' Britishempiricists in the early modern era were John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume. The term "British empiricism" refers to the philosophical tradition in Britain that was epitomised by these thinkers (though this tradition did have precursors in Britain stretching back toRoger Bacon). Berkeley, despite being Irish, was referred to as British asCounty Kilkenny, where he lived inIreland, was a part of theUnited Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland at the time.
John Locke (1632–1704) was an empiricist at the beginning of themodern period of philosophy. Locke held that all of the objects of the understanding are ideas, where ideas exist in the mind. One of his goals in his workAn Essay Concerning Human Understanding is to trace the origin of ideas. There are no innate ideas “stamped upon the mind” from birth, and all knowledge is rooted in experience. Further, there are alsosimple ideas andcomplex ideas. Simple ideas enter by the senses, and they are simple and unmixed. Complex ideas are simple ideas that have been combined and related together using the abstracting activity of the mind.
John Locke embodied the idea of religious tolerance and said "no mans knowledge can exceed his experience" based on his background in epistemology.
Locke is also responsible for an early theory ofpersonal identity. He thought that our being the same person from one time to another consists, not in our having the same soul or the same body, but rather the same series of psychological connections. For Locke, to be a person is to be an intelligent thinking being that can know itself as itself, the same thinking thing in different times and places.
Locke's patron's grandson was moral philosopher.Lord Shaftesbury.
Thedeists includedJohn Toland,Matthew Tindal,William Wollaston,Anthony Collins, andHenry St. John Viscount Bolingbroke.Samuel Clarke was an ethical rationalist who opposed deism. Clarke influencedEdmund Burke. Other opponents of deism includeRichard Bentley,William Warburton, and Shaftesbury influencedJoseph Butler.
George Berkeley (1685–1753) was anIrish philosopher who served asBishop of Cloyne from 1734 until his death. He was a Britishempiricist,[30] animmaterialist, and anidealist. Many of his most important ideas were first put forth inA Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, a work which was critical of John Locke's philosophy. Berkeley agreed with Locke that there was an outside world which caused the ideas within the mind, but Berkeley sought to prove that the outside world was also composed solely of ideas. Berkeley thought that the ideas that we possessed could only resemble other ideas (not physical objects) and thus the external world consisted not of physical form, but rather of ideas. This world was given logic and regularity by some other force, which Berkeley concluded was God.
Berkeley is famous for his motto"esse est percipi aut percipere", or otherwise,"to exist is to be perceived, or to perceive". This means that there are no things other than ideas and the minds that house them. There is no such thing as a mind-independent entity.
After Berkeley, metaphysics was temporarily abandoned in Britain, with the exception ofJames Burnett.
David Hume (1711–1776) was a Scottishphilosopher,economist, andhistorian. His major works,A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–1740), theAn Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (1748),An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751), andDialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779) remain widely influential.[31] His ideas regarding free will and determinism, causation, personal identity, induction, and morality still inspire discussion.
Hume famously described theproblem of induction. He argues thatinductive reasoning cannot be rationally employed, since, in order to justify induction, one would either have to provide a sound deductive argument or an inductively strong argument. But there is no sound deductive argument for induction, and to ask for an inductive argument to justify induction would be tobeg the question.
Hume's problem of causation is related to his problem of induction. He held that there is no empirical access to the supposed necessary connection between cause and effect. In seeking to justify the belief that A causes B, one would point out that, in the past, B has always closely followed A in both space and time. But the special necessary connection that is supposed to be causation is never given to us in experience. We only observe a constant conjunction of events, with no necessity whatsoever.
In personal identity, Hume was abundle theorist. He said that there is no robust self to which properties adhere. Experience only shows us that there is only a bundle of perceptions.
There were also the materialist philosophersDavid Hartley andJoseph Priestley.Abraham Tucker andWilliam Godwin were influenced by Hartley.William Paley put forward theargument from design.
TheScottish Enlightenment saw a series of Scottish philosophers.
Adam Smith (1723–1790) was aScottishmoral philosopher and a pioneer ofpolitical economics. Smith wroteThe Theory of Moral Sentiments andAn Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. The latter, usually abbreviated asThe Wealth of Nations, is considered hismagnum opus and the first modern work ofeconomics. Smith is widely cited as the father of modern economics.
Smith studiedmoral philosophy at theUniversity of Glasgow and theUniversity of Oxford. After graduating, he delivered a successful series of public lectures atEdinburgh, leading him to collaborate withDavid Hume. Smith obtained a professorship atGlasgow teaching moral philosophy, and during this time he wrote and publishedThe Theory of Moral Sentiments.
Thomas Reid (1710–1796) was the most famous critic of David Hume. Reid advocatedcommon sense anddirect realism. This influenced thinkers such asDugald Stewart,Thomas Brown,Sir William Hamilton, andH. L. Mansel.
Francis Hutcheson (1694–1746) famously advocated inner senses of morality and aesthetics akin to physical external senses like sight and hearing.
Utilitarianism is aconsequentialist theory ofnormative ethics which holds that an act is morally right if and only if that act maximizes happiness or pleasure.
Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) is well known for beginning the tradition of classical utilitarianism in Britain. Classical utilitarianism is said to be hedonistic because it regards pleasure as the only intrinsic good and pain as the only intrinsic evil.[32]
Utilitarianism was described by Bentham as "thegreatest happiness orgreatest felicity principle".[33] Bentham's utilitarianism is known for arguing that thefelicific calculus should be used to determine the rightness and wrongness of acts. It does this by measuring the amount of pain and pleasure for various acts. Bentham thought that pleasure and pain could be broken down into distinct units called hedons and dolors.
John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) the son ofJames Mill was an influential contributor tosocial theory,political theory, andpolitical economy. His conception ofliberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control.[34]
Mill also continued Bentham's tradition of advancing and defending utilitarianism. Mill's bookUtilitarianism is a philosophical defense of utilitarianism. The essay first appeared as a series of three articles published inFraser's Magazine in 1861; the articles were collected and reprinted as a single book in 1863.
Henry Sidgwick (1838–1900) also focused on utilitarian ethics and was one of the founders and first president of theSociety for Psychical Research, was a member of theMetaphysical Society, and promoted thehigher education of women.The Methods of Ethics is a book onutilitarianism written by Sidgwick that was first published in 1874.[35] TheStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy indicates thatThe Methods of Ethics "in many ways marked the culmination of the classical utilitarian tradition." Well-known contemporary utilitarian philosopherPeter Singer has said that theMethods "is simply the best book on ethics ever written."[36]
Charles Darwin'stheory of evolution influenced many philosophers, such asHerbert Spencer,T. H. Huxley,George Henry Lewes,Leslie Stephen,W. K. Clifford, andKarl Pearson.
British philosophy in the nineteenth century saw a revival of logic started byRichard Whately (1787 – 1863), in reaction to the anti-logical tradition of British empiricism. The major figure of this period is mathematicianGeorge Boole (1815 – 1864). Other figures include Scottish metaphysicianWilliam Hamilton, mathematicianAugustus De Morgan, economistWilliam Stanley Jevons,diagram namesakeJohn Venn,Alice's Adventures in Wonderland authorLewis Carroll, Scottish mathematicianHugh MacColl, and AmericanpragmatistCharles Sanders Peirce.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge introduced Kant's philosophy to Britain.John Henry Newman andJames Martineau put forward idealist views, as didJ. F. Ferrier andJohn Grote. British philosophy was influenced by Hegel'sabsolute idealism from the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth century, calledBritish idealism. Important representatives includedT. H. Green,F. H. Bradley,Bernard Bosanquet,J. M. E. McTaggart,H. H. Joachim,J. H. Muirhead, andG. R. G. Mure. Two British philosophers,G. E. Moore andBertrand Russell, were brought up in this tradition and then reacted against it, pioneeringanalytic philosophy.
Analytic philosophy sought to accommodate the new developments in logic pioneered by German mathematicianGottlob Frege. It has dominated philosophy in the English-speaking world since the early 20th century.
George Edward Moore (1873–1958) was one of the founders of theanalytic tradition. He led the British 'revolt against idealism' at the turn of the twentieth century, along with Bertrand Russell, who stated that it was in fact Moore who "led the way".[37]
Moore is best known today for his defence ofethical non-naturalism, his emphasis oncommon sense in philosophical method, and theparadox that bears his name. He was admired by and influential among other academic philosophers, and also by theBloomsbury Group. He was president of theAristotelian Society from 1918 to 1919.[38] Moore is known for his clear, circumspect writing style, and for his methodical and patient approach to philosophical problems. He was critical of philosophy for its lack ofprogress, which he believed was in stark contrast to the dramatic advances in thenatural sciences since theRenaissance. Among his most famous works are his bookPrincipia Ethica, and his essays, "The Refutation of Idealism", "A Defence of Common Sense", and "A Proof of the External World".
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) led the British "revolt againstidealism" in the early 1900s, along with G. E. Moore. He was influenced byGottlob Frege, and was the mentor ofLudwig Wittgenstein. He is widely held to be one of the 20th century's premier logicians, with influence onlogic,mathematics,set theory,linguistics, and philosophy.[39] He co-authored, withAlfred North Whitehead,Principia Mathematica, an attempt to derive all mathematical truths from a set ofaxioms usingrules of inference insymbolic logic. Russell used atheory of types to overcome theparadox bearing his name.
Russell'stheory of descriptions has been profoundly influential in thephilosophy of language and the analysis ofdefinite descriptions. His theory was first developed in his 1905 paper "On Denoting" which has been considered a "paradigm of philosophy."[40][b]
A. J. Ayer (1910 – 1989) was a British analytic philosopher known for his promotion oflogical positivism, particularly in his booksLanguage, Truth and Logic (1936) andThe Problem of Knowledge (1956).
Ordinary language philosophy is a philosophical school that approaches traditional philosophical problems as rooted inmisunderstandings that philosophers develop by forgetting what words mean in their everyday use. It was a major philosophic school between 1930 and 1970.
This approach typically involves eschewing philosophical theories in favour of close attention to the detail of everyday language. Sometimes also called "Oxford philosophy", it is generally associated with the work of a number of mid-centuryOxford professors: mainlyJ. L. Austin, but alsoGilbert Ryle,H. L. A. Hart, andP. F. Strawson.
Recent British philosophers particularly active in thephilosophy of religion have includedAntony Flew,C. S. Lewis, andJohn Hick.
Important moral and political philosophers have includedR. M. Hare,Alasdair MacIntyre, andRoger Scruton.
Other recent figures in the British analytic tradition includeDavid Wiggins,Derek Parfit,Timothy Williamson, andGraham Priest who have focused on fields such asmetaphysics,philosophy of mind, logic, and thephilosophy of language.
On Liberty is a rational justification of the freedom of the individual in opposition to the claims of the state to impose unlimited control and is thus a defence of the rights of the individual against the state.
