Plotting the Idealist Inheritance: Victorian Philosophical Developments

Abstract

This chapter discusses various aspects of idealist philosophy with reference to Hegel Green. At the end of the 18th century, the reception of Kant's writings was caught up in the highly charged political issue of his reputed endorsement of the republican sentiments embodied in the French Revolution. The perceived perilousness of German thought was however not confined to any one political stance. Both extreme liberalism and extreme authoritarianism, apparently sanctioned by German philosophy, were perceived to be alarming. Both German and French thinkers were read throughout the first half of the 19th century. In addition, many British writers travelled to Germany or France in the first decades of that century. But despite an increasing familiarity with German culture, German philosophy remained linked with disreputable notions. The long-standing identification of German philosophy with the Prussian military state reached its apex with the outbreak of war in 1914.