The Works of T.H.Green (New ed)

In the fields of metaphysics and epistemology, ethics and political thought, idealism can generate controversy and disagreement.

This title is part of the "Idealism" series, which finds in idealism new features of interest and a perspective which is germane to our own philosophical concerns. Idealist philosopher, liberal political theorist, and reformer, Thomas Hill Green (1836-82) initiated the British renaissance of Hegelian philosophy in the 1870s, and ensured its total supercedence of utilitarianism as the most prominent philosophical school in universities.

Unlike German philosophical idealism, Green used British idealism as part of a practical programme of liberal reform.

He attacked received views in metaphysics and theory of knowledge, and traditional ideas that regarded man as part of nature governed by deterministic laws. Green saw human personality as an essentially social phenomenon, arguing that isolated natural man as moral agent was inconceivable.

His combination of moral individualism with collectivism, particularly his view of the state as an individual agent of moral improvement, led him to support the enlargement of the state's repsonsibility to the citizen, anticipating later developments such as the Welfare State. This collection includes: Nettleship's edition of T.H.

Green's works, produced shortly after Green's death, including miscellanies and a memoir; Green's key ethical work "Prolegomena"; plus a volume of material including letters and papers.