Colin Tyler

The primary purpose of this paper is to defend three controversial claims that arise out of T.H. Green’s arguments in the first two books of the Prolegomena to Ethics. The first claim—which I defend in §1—is that one should not try to separate the aspects of Green’s metaphysical theory that are set out in book one of the Prolegomena from the theory of the will he developed in book two. The second claim—defended in §2—is that it is possible for an atheist to accept Green’s arguments for the existence of an eternal consciousness. The third claim—again, defended in §2—is that the eternal consciousness is a potential of every individual mind, rather than being some type of mystical ‘super-person’ of which any particular human consciousness is a mere adjunct.

In this previously unpublished essay, Edward Caird attacks Spencer's Transfigured Realism, before defending an absolute idealist theory of the formation of self-consciousness. Along the way, Caird also considered the writings of Bishop George Berkeley, David Hume, Sir William Hamilton, J.S. Mill and Henry Sidgwick. Yet the primary foci of the essay were Herbert Spencer's writings, particularly First Principles, the second edition of Principles of Psychology and the third volume of Essays: Scientific, Political and Speculative . It appears to follow from Caird's 1874 review of the third volume of Spencer's Essays, a piece which concluded with the observation that: 'There are some other points of interest in Mr. Spencer's 'Replies,' particularly his strange representation of Kant's meaning , but it would take too much space to discuss the subject here.'

This article argues that, despite its reputation as a homogenising and authoritarian system, the political thought of Bernard Bosanquet contains resources with which to develop a robust and culturally sensitive model of liberal multiculturalism. Throughout the discussion, Bosanquet's thought is located within contemporary theoretical debates. The first section rehearses the critique of Millian liberalism developed by Bhikhu Parekh and others, which alleges that the considerations of individuality and autonomy underlying such a political order preclude it from showing adequate respect for cultures which do not conceive of personal identity in essentially individualistic terms. The next section sketches Bosanquet's social theory, as a preclude to the rebuttal of allegedly insurmountable barriers to the theory's accommodation of cultural diversity. Specifically, section three counters the objection that Bosanquet sanctions the imposition of internal restrictions on personal dissent. The final section rebuts the claim that a General Will cannot exist within a culturally diverse society, showing that in reality Bosanquet's theory leads us to endorse the ‘fundamental beliefs’ of a multi-ethnic society outlined recently in the Parekh Report. It is concluded that, when drawing on Bosanquet's thought, a liberal multicultural society can take different forms and yet still show proper respect for cultural diversity.