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Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Appearance and Reality' and 'De Legibus Naturae'

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3 ideas

11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 3. Idealism / d. Absolute idealism
British Idealists said reality is a single Mind which experiences itself [Bradley, by Grayling]
     Full Idea: The idealism of Green and Bradley, both of whom were much influenced by the German Idealists, espoused the thesis that the universe ultimately consists of a single Mind which, so to speak, experiences itself.
     From: report of F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893]) by A.C. Grayling - Russell Ch.2
     A reaction: This looks now like the last (extreme) throw by the religious view of the world, which collapsed in the face of the empirical realism of Russell and Moore. It is all Kant's fault, for cutting us off from his 'noumenon'.
Bradley's objective idealism accepts reality (the Absolute), but says we can't fully describe it [Bradley, by Potter]
     Full Idea: Objective idealists such as Bradley (rather than Berkeley's subjective view) accepted the substantial existence of reality (which they called the 'Absolute') but held that thought cannot fully describe it.
     From: report of F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893]) by Michael Potter - The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 23 'Abs'
     A reaction: That thought can't 'fully' describe it seems obvious, so I suspect Bradley's view are stronger than that. This sounds like modern strong and weak anti-realists; strong ones deny reality, but weak ones just deny we know where the joints are.
Qualities and relations are mere appearance; the Absolute is a single undifferentiated substance [Bradley, by Heil]
     Full Idea: In Bradley's view, qualities and relations belong to the realm of appearance. We are left with a single, undifferentiated substance: the Absolute.
     From: report of F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893]) by John Heil - Relations 'Internal'
     A reaction: I've not read Bradley, but I can't distinguish this proposal from Parmenides's belief in The One. Or maybe Spinoza's monist view of God and Nature (but that is 'differentiated'). It doesn't sound like Hegel.