This new volume is of exceptional value to scholars because of the editors’ success in placing the work in its philosophical context. The introduction provides the reader with a synopsis of British Idealism and a context for understanding this thinker. For example, since Bosanquet thought his beliefs almost identical to Green’s, it is useful to have the editors pointing out that Green pressed Bosanquet to publish them, implying that Green knew otherwise. Similarly, Bosanquet’s defense of economic individualism earns the editors’ (...) description as “communitarian,” hardly what one would expect of a devotee of positive liberty. (shrink)

This new volume is of exceptional value to scholars because of the editors’ success in placing the work in its philosophical context. The introduction provides the reader with a synopsis of British Idealism and a context for understanding this thinker. For example, since Bosanquet thought his beliefs almost identical to Green’s, it is useful to have the editors pointing out that Green pressed Bosanquet to publish them, implying that Green knew otherwise. Similarly, Bosanquet’s defense of economic individualism earns the editors’ (...) description as “communitarian,” hardly what one would expect of a devotee of positive liberty. (shrink)

This book argues that the Russian-British philosopher Isaiah Berlin should primarily be understood through British idealism. Though he adopted Kantian methodology and a view of people as purposive beings, he rejected the Idealists' monism and theories of positive liberty. Robert A. Kocis demonstrates how, like Michael Oakeshott and R. G. Collingwood, Berlin can be seen as a 'post-Idealist' thinker, invested in the implications of that rich tradition.