Customer Reviews

Appearance and Reality: A Metaphysical Essay (Oxford Paperbacks)

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I'm reviewing a book which is currently out of print. "Why bother?", one might ask. Well, Bradley's work is one of the clearest explanations of ideas which are central to our 20th century fascination with alternate religions. This is not to say that Bradley was exactly a mystic -- his belief system went beyond mysticism. Yet his emphasis on understanding the limits of our mental life finds strong parallels in Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, as well as Western 'New Age' approaches.

Strangely, he wrote in the 19th century. Modern academic philosophers find his work not particularly important. Yet the average reader can gain quite a lot from reading Bradley, his writing style is clear and lucid, and after finishing the book, interested readers may find their world taking on a slightly different cast. It is disappointing to find that Appearance and Reality is out of print, because it stands, especially today, as a text which explicates basic philosophical issues in a way which remains relevant.

Brian Whitaker

Something must have _happened_ to Francis Herbert Bradley.

He seems to have been something of a curmudgeon; at least, he was extremely reclusive and had a reputation for shooting cats. But at some point in his life he must have come to some sort of deep mystical realization.

Otherwise he couldn't have written this book, which reads like a Western version of Shankara. This is philosophy in the grand old style, and it's one of the high points of British idealism.

Bradley's argument doesn't always hold up in its precise details. He doesn't, for example, think that "relations" are real because (he says) they lead to an infinite regress. But Royce replied to this pretty adequately in an appendix to _The World and the Individual_. He also states firmly (and I think correctly) that there's no conceiving reality apart from experience and there's no duality in experience between subject and object. But support for this claim isn't exactly forthcoming. (Timothy L.S. Sprigge does a much better job with it in _The Vindication of Absolute Idealism_.)

But the essential structure of his argument is sound and could be carried through again with a different set of examples (the standard logical paradoxes, say): the world of our ordinary experience turns out upon inspection to be contradictory, so it can't be fully and finally real; what _is_ fully and finally real is a nondual Absolute in which all those apparent contradictions are resolved through that very nonduality.

Well, Bradley puts it better than that, of course, and his prose style is very pleasant to read. This work is also excerpted in James W. Allard and Guy Stock's collection of Bradley's _Writings on Logic and Metaphysics_, so if you want to read a shorter version, check that volume out.

Anyway, the point is, don't ever let anybody tell you there isn't any nondualistic wisdom here in the West. In a different time and place, Bradley would have been revered as a guru -- a prospect that in all likelihood would have made him cringe, so it's probably just as well. But he's clearly trying to articulate a vision here, and few writers have tackled "rational mysticism" with such philosophical flair.

I doubt that Shankara would have shot cats. Fortunately the similarities run deeper than that.

This book is indeed extremely important for analytic, continental, and mystic philosophers alike. Bradley's positive view, the Absolute, is proposed here as the _only way out_ of those messy analytic debates regarding topics such as appearance vs. reality, plurality, quality, and causation. Bradley's starting point: what is absurd (logically impossible) cannot exist.

This book, written in 1893, is one of the most important books in the history of English language philosophy. During his lifetime, Bradley was one of the best known of British philosophers, but before he died (in 1924) his metaphysical position dropped out of fashion, in part because it was attacked (and misrepresented) by Russell and Moore. In spite of their hostility, Twentieth Century analytic philosophers were profoundly influenced by Bradley. For an excellent discussion of this matter, read the first chapter of Tom Rockmore's book, Hegel, Idealism, and Analytic Philosophy. I recommend reading _Appearance and Reality_ before taking on Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit (Galaxy Books). Bradley's argument for absolute idealism is the best written in English. His writing is lively, frequently pointed and sardonic, a "good read". This version, a reproduction of the 1893 edition, is sturdy, well bound, on good paper. It is a bargain and a must read for anyone with a serious interest in philosophy.

Bradley had the misfortune to coincide in his later years with Russell and Whitehead, whose monumental work redirected Philosphy towards the realm of Mathematical Logic and Scientific Materialism. Yet, Bradley's revised version of Hegelian Idealism, strengthened by judiciously chosen elements from the British Idealist tradition, still stands as a practically inexpugnable bulwark against the inroads of those tempted by a spontaneous, unreflective materialism, namely, most of the scientific community today.

Also extremely well written, witty, sharp and captivating in parts. Well worth a perusal, especially the early chapters.

I completely disagree with his conception of reality, but I enjoyed this book. Bradley was a precursor to the language philosophers. Everyone seems intrigued with Wittgenstein; however, Bradley is far more comprehensive and profound. Plus, he writes very good English. Bradley distinguishes subtle naunces in meaning between words and in this way is a precursor to language philosophy. I also recommend C. S. Lewis's book, A Study in Words.

I'm amazed that all the books I have on language philosophy exclude F H Bradley. He did everything language philosophers did before they did it.

This book ISN'T out of print. An edition from Cambridge University Press is available on Amazon. This version contains dark scanned pages from a previously owned copy, replete with underlinings and scrawled marginal notes. I'm not joking. I looked up the publishing company (Kessinger), and it appears this kind of dodgy business is their schtick. The CUP version only costs a little more, and it's, well, you know, a normal book.

As far as Bradley's thought is concerned. I've only read the shorter appearance bit thus far, but if want to see metaphysics at its most unhinged, this is the book for you. I for one love it.

This is very significant treatise on first principles. However the Kindle version is irritatingly sloppy. Poor format, poor transfer, - at times only the context of the scrambled "word" will reveal the actual word Bradley wrote. I hope my friends at Amazon will redo this text and notify those of us who purchaed it that a faithful copy is now available.