The Metaphysics Of Self Realisation And Freedom

This first part of Colin Tyler’s new critical assessment of the social and political thought of T.H. Green (1836–1882) explores the grounding that Green gives to liberal socialism. Tyler shows how, for Green, ultimately, personal self-realisation and freedom stem from the innate human drive to construct a bedrock of fundamental values and commitments that can define and give direction to the individual’s most valuable potentials and talents. This book is not only a significant contribution to British idealist scholarship. It highlights also the enduring philosophical and ethical resources of a social democratic tradition that remains one of the world’s most important social and political movements, and not least across Britain, Europe, North America, India and Australia. Dr Colin Tyler is Reader in Politics at the University of Hull and joint convenor of the Centre for British Idealism.

Civil Society, Capitalism and the State presents a critical reconstruction of the social and political facets of Thomas Hill Green's liberal socialism. It explores the complex relationships Green sees between human nature, personal freedom, the common good, rights and the state. It explores Green's analysis of free exchange, his critique of capitalism and his defence of trade union activity and the cooperative movement. It establishes that Green gives only grudging support to welfarism, which he saw as a conservative mechanism in effect if not conscious design. It is shown that he believes state provision of welfare to be justified only to the extent that peasants and the proletariat lack a culture and institutions which enable them to assert themselves against abusive landlords and capitalists. Ultimately, it is shown that Green's guiding ideal is the creation of a eudaimonically-enriching kingdom of ends, which favours the creation of a dynamic and free society driven by mass participation through decentralised social and political institutions. This book builds on Colin Tyler's The Metaphysics of Self-realisation and Freedom (2010), although it can also be read as a freestanding work.

This book examines Mary Ward’s distinctive insight into late-Victorian and Edwardian society as a famous writer and reformer, who was inspired by the philosopher and British idealist, Thomas Hill Green. As a talented woman who had studied among Oxford University intellectuals in the 1870s, and the granddaughter of Dr Arnold of Rugby, Mrs Humphry Ward (as she was best known) was in a unique position to participate in the debates, issues and events that shaped her generation; religious doubt and Christianity, educational reforms, socialism, women’s suffrage and the First World War. Helen Loader examines a range of biographical sources, alongside Mary Ward’s writings and social reform activities, to demonstrate how she expressed and engaged with Greenian idealism, both in theory and practice, and made a significant contribution to British Society.

This book gives a comprehensive account of the British Idealist approach to international relations from the 1880s to 1930s. In an attempt to historically contextualise the shifts in several British Idealists' approaches to the nature of international relations and human rights, it focuses on their reflections on the Second Boer War, the Great War and the League of Nations. The ensuing discussion offers valuable insights into British Idealists' evolving approaches to the topics of imperialism, cosmopolitanism, internationalism, multiculturalism and human rights. While the pioneering Idealists like T.H. Green and Bernard Bosanquet are acknowledged as those who set the tone of discussion on these central issues, works by minor British Idealists such as J.S. Mackenzie, J.H. Muirhead, Henry Jones, R.B. Haldane and H.J.W. Hetherington reveal British Idealism's capacity for adaptation to novel ideational positions under adverse international conditions.

This book argues that the distinction between positive and negative freedom remains highly pertinent today, despite having fallen out of fashion in the late twentieth century. It proposes a new reading of this distinction for the twenty-first century, building on the work of Constant, Green and Berlin who led the historical development of these ideas. The author defends the idea that freedom is a dynamic interaction between two inseparable, yet sometimes fundamentally, opposed positive and negative concepts – the yin and yang of freedom. Positive freedom is achieved when one succeeds in doing what is right, while negative freedom is achieved when one is able to advance one’s wellbeing. In an environment of culture wars, resurging populism and challenge to progressive liberal values, recognising the duality of freedom can help us better understand the political dilemmas we face and point the way forward. The book analyses the duality of freedom in more philosophical depth than previous studies and places it within the context of both historical and contemporary political thinking. It will be of interest to students and scholars of liberalism and political theory.

This Handbook discusses representative philosophers in the history of the philosophy of law and social philosophy, giving clear concise expert definitions and explanations of key personalities and their ideas. It provides an essential reference for experts and newcomers alike.

Does Confucianism conflict with liberalism? Confucian Liberalism sheds new light on this long-standing debate entwined with the discourse of Chinese modernity. Focusing on the legacy of Mou Zongsan, the book significantly recasts the moral character and political ideal of Confucianism, accompanied by a Hegelian retreatment of the multiple facets of Western modernity and its core values, such as individuality, self-realization, democracy, civilized society, citizenship, public good, freedom, and human rights. The book offers a culturally sensitive way of reevaluating liberal language and forges a reconciliation between the two extremes of anti-Confucian liberalism and anti-liberal Confucianism. The result—Confucian liberalism—is akin to civil liberalism, in that it rests the form of liberal democracy on the content of "Confucian democratic civility." It is also comparable to perfectionist liberalism, endorsing a nondominant concept of the common good surrounded by a set of "Confucian governing and civic virtues."