GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

CHAPTER XV: THE IDEALIST
THEORY OF THE STATE
The idealist or, as it is sometimes called
Introductory*
the absolutist theory of the State, forms an integral part
of the tradition of philosophical idealism which, until
recent years, was the dominating influence in English
philosophy. Assigning for the first time its typical form in
the works of the German philosopher Hegel (1770*1831),
the theory was popularized in England by a group of
Oxford philosophers of whom F. H. Bradley (1846-1924)
was the most prominent, and developed to its extreme
conclusions in Dr. Bosanquet's 1 work The Philosophical
Theory of the State. In the years immediately succeeding
the War the doctrine was subjected on the theoretical side
to a number of criticisms, the more important of which
will be summarized in Chapter XVIII. In particular it
was widely charged with having bestowed a philosophical
sanction upon the actual practices of States, especially
of States in war-time. Dissatisfaction with these practices
brought discredit upon the theory which was thought
rightly or wrongly to excuse them, and led political theorists
to seek in conceptions of a different order an alternative
to the view of the State which the theory entailed. Still
more recently, however, the rise of totalitarian States in
Italy, Germany and the countries of south-eastern Europe
has led to a renewal of interest in and support for the
theory, since, even when totalitarian tenets have not
explicitly invoked Hegelian philosophy in their justification,
they .can be plausibly represented as the logical developments
ofthe implications which are latent in that philosophy.
The theory is difficult and abstract It is also apparently
remote from the actual facts of political life and is apt to