Francis Herbert Bradley's Defence of Metaphysics

Abstract

The aim of the article is to analyse the arguments formulated in defence of metaphysics by Francis Herbert Bradley in the introduction to his main work Appearance and Reality. The Oxford philosopher, being one of the last significant representatives of systemic philosophy, was aware that the era in which he had to live and create was an era in which the validity or value of metaphysics, understood as the theory of first principles, was questioned. In his defence of metaphysics, he criticizes the anti-metaphysical argumentation which we can associate, not without reason, with the thought of Kant and Hume. He also points out, somewhat ahead of the twentieth-century critique of systemic philosophy, that it is not a source of dogmatism, but rather, as a critical reflection on our concepts, it is in fact “a refuge for the man who burns to think consistently, and yet is too good to become a slave, either to stupid fanaticism or dishonest sophistry”.