IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/polstu/v63y2015i2p319-335.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Individuality, Freedom and Socialism: The British Idealists' Critiques of the Fichtean State

Author

Listed:
  • Colin Tyler

Abstract

type="main"> Together with utilitarianism, British idealism dominated Anglo-American philosophy from the 1870s until the end of the First World War. This article counters a persisting criticism of the British idealists: that they endorsed the allegedly oppressive and static theory of the state associated with German idealists, especially J. G. Fichte. The article introduces the British idealists' reputation as Fichtean collectivists and provides an overview of leading current interpretations of Fichte's political thought. It then analyses T. H. Green's use of Fichtean terminology against the background of Fichte's reception in Britain in the 1860s and 1870s. Edward Caird's interpretation of – and alternative to – Fichte's socialism is analysed, followed by an examination of the readings of William Wallace and Bernard Bosanquet. It is concluded that these British idealists rejected the alleged Fichtean centralism for which they have been condemned, and did so on grounds that retain force in contemporary debates between Fichte scholars.

Suggested Citation

  • Colin Tyler, 2015. "Individuality, Freedom and Socialism: The British Idealists' Critiques of the Fichtean State," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 63(2), pages 319-335, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:polstu:v:63:y:2015:i:2:p:319-335
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/1467-9248.12108
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Stefano Spalletti, 2017. "Elementi di pensiero economico nello Stato commerciale chiuso di J. G. Fichte," Working Papers 49-2017, Macerata University, Department of Studies on Economic Development (DiSSE), revised Jun 2017.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:polstu:v:63:y:2015:i:2:p:319-335. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0032-3217 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.