Idealist Political Philosophy: Pluralism and Conflict in the Absolute Idealist Tradition (review)

In his Idealist Political Philosophy, Colin Tyler argues for a reappraisal of idealist political philosophy and for the recognition of its relevance to contemporary political theory. The absolute idealist tradition, Tyler contends, provides a live alternative to mainstream liberalism by marrying respect for the individual with a “culturally sensitive politics” (5). It also offers a political philosophy grounded in praxis, in the dynamic and essentially conflictual nature of democratic politics, rather than in abstract principles or in “the philosophical self-indulgence . . . all-too-prevalent in certain strands of contemporary political philosophy” (3).

Admittedly, this may seem an odd agenda. After all, Tyler notes, the absolute idealist tradition has frequently been thought of as “repressive and monolithic . . . glorifying the state at the expense of spontaneously generated civil society groups and individuals” (1). The idealists, it is said, were “dangerous collectivists” (167), for whom “the pluralism of meanings and values and the conflicts which they generate . . . [are] temporary imperfections that should be suppressed through force so as to foster the realisation of the Absolute” (2). Not, it would seem, a promising place to start. But this is precisely the picture of absolute idealism that Tyler contests—at least as concerns the philosophers on whom he focuses, namely G. W. F. Hegel, Thomas Hill Green, Edward Caird, and Bernard Bosanquet.

He begins by discussing Hegel’s views on state formation and war, arguing that it is deeply misleading to claim (as many do) that Hegel “glorified . . . war” or saw “domination by ‘civilized states’” as the culmination of historical progress (4). Instead, Hegel viewed conflict as both tragic and necessary in international politics—the primary means by which states gain recognition from each other. Next on the agenda is Green’s radicalism, his critique of utilitarianism and political atomism, and his attitude toward franchise reform in the 1860s. The justification of this radicalism lay in the fact that Green saw “political wisdom not as the proper preserve of an educated or wealthy elite but as a common potential of mankind” (90). And the best way to fulfil that potential was to foster the inclusion of a plurality of judgements concerning “society’s common good” into political debate (90)—through extension of the franchise, for example. Much the same can be said about Caird, another radical idealist. For Caird, social evolution is inherently conflictual and “social growth and personal agency” evolve hand in hand (103). As such, Caird’s radicalism is almost perfectly in line with Green’s.

When Tyler turns to Bosanquet, his conclusions are more tempered. It is true, he admits, that Bosanquet’s metaphysical commitments (especially his theory of value) prevent him from according intrinsic value to individuals. For Bosanquet, individuals have value only constitutively, that is, “to the extent that [they make] a contribution to the instantiation of the Absolute” (158). This does not imply that they can be sacrificed willy-nilly in the service of the community; their constitutive value is both real and necessary. But it does suggest that there can be circumstances (however rare) in which individuals ought to be sacrificed for the greater good—so, Tyler concludes, “it does appear that illiberalism pervaded Bosanquet’s political thought” (158).

In many ways, the book’s final chapter is its most engaging and original. It discusses the work of Green’s disciple, Richard Lewis Nettleship, and examines one important criticism of “mainstream state-centric liberalism” (167), namely, the charge that liberal theory has “become ‘missionary, ethnocentric and narrow, dismissing nonliberal ways of life and thought as primitive and in need of the liberal civilising mission’” (Bhikhu Parekh qtd. in Tyler 167). Tyler argues that Green, Caird, and Nettleship offer us the resources to respond to this criticism within a broadly liberal framework. Indeed, even Bosanquet, Tyler urges, should be recognised as a major and viable alternative (despite his problematic value theory). In the final analysis Tyler concludes, the absolute idealists...