Abstract

Most accounts of British philosophy devote some space to what is variously called “British Idealism,” or “Neo-Hegelianism,” or “Absolute Idealism” of which Bradley and Bosanquet are taken as typical representatives. Muirhead, who was sympathetic to the idealist cause, wrote that having “the work of both before us in all the fullness of its content, we may perhaps see in it the best illustration of their own central doctrine of the self-differentiating, self-enriching power of any single valid principle—the unity of sameness and difference.” Many who are sympathetic to an idealistic stance would adhere more or less wholeheartedly to this judgment. Those, on the other hand, who regard the whole idealistic movement as an episode now happily over are only too willing to subscribe to the view that there is little to choose between the two thinkers.