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

What is it about?

This article demonstrates that the British idealists rejected the oppressive stance on the state which is often attributed to them, an attitude that most of the movement associated with Fichte. Moreover, this article addresses the fact that, although recent years have seen a resurgence of interest in philosophical idealism, Fichte’s British reception remains obscure as do the links to British idealism. Section two lays the groundwork for analysing the British idealists’ criticisms of Fichte by sketching some leading strands in contemporary Fichte scholarship, divided here into liberal interpretations and authoritarian interpretations. Section three examines the reception of Fichte’s political thought in Britain between 1860 and 1900 focusing on Green’s invocations of Fichtean terminology. Section four considers Edward Caird’s assessment of Fichte, focusing on his allegation that Fichte denigrated the experiences of particular real individuals in his political thought by making the self a mystical collective entity, to be served by a ‘mechanical’ state. It sketches Caird’s theory so as to emphasise his distance from Fichte. Section five reinforces this reading by examining William Wallace and Bosanquet’s evaluations of Fichte. In this way, the article exposes important weaknesses of the authoritarian criticisms of British idealism. Moreover, it indicates that although, as Hobhouse wrote, the Rhine did flow into the Isis in the late-Victorian period, here at least the intermingling resulted in something rather more liberal than many scholars have claimed.

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Why is it important?

This article is significant both because it corrects a widespread misunderstanding of one of the movements that laid the foundations for British interventionist liberalism and socialism including the UK Labour Party, but also because the approach remains relevant in an age of austerity and global capitalism.