The Aftermath of British Idealism (1945-1955)
This text is a preview of History of the Reception of Hegel, volume II, to be published in 2026 by Reflexivity Press.
The Movement of the Whole
Around 1900, Hegel had been influential in Great Britain. T.H. Green (1836-1882), F.H. Bradley (1846-1924), Bernard Bosanquet (1848-1923), and J.M.E. McTaggart (1866-1925) had developed a British Idealism that adapted Hegel’s philosophy to English conditions—anti-atomistic, holistic, ethically engaged.[1]
But after the First World War, this movement collapsed. G.E. Moore’s “Refutation of Idealism” (1903) and Bertrand Russell’s “The Problems of Philosophy” (1912) had exposed idealism as metaphysical speculation. The new generation—Russell, Moore, later Ayer and Ryle—defined itself through the rejection of idealism. Hegel became the scapegoat for everything that seemed dubious about continental philosophy: obscurity, speculation, systematic compulsion.[2]
After 1945, British Idealism seemed dead. Its main representatives had died, its chairs were occupied by analytic philosophers, its works went unread. Oxford and Cambridge became centers of analytic philosophy—linguistic analysis, formal logic, empirical philosophy of science. Hegel was considered overcome.
But two figures preserved elements of Hegelianism—albeit in transformed form: R.G. Collingwood and Michael Oakeshott.
On the history of British Idealism see W.J. Mander: British Idealism: A History (2011); James Bradley: “British Idealism” in: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2020). ↩︎
G.E. Moore: “The Refutation of Idealism” in: Mind 12 (1903); Bertrand Russell: The Problems of Philosophy (1912), chapter on “Appearance and Reality.” ↩︎