Bernard Bosanquet

First published in 2002. This is Volume I out of three on a series on Aesthetics. First published in 1892, this volume contributes to the history of modern philosophy. Aesthetic theory is a branch of philosophy which exists for the sake of knowledge and not as a guide to practice. The present work is, therefore, primarily addressed to those who may find a philosophical interest in understanding the place and value of beauty in the system of human life, as conceived by leading thinkers in different periods of the world's history.

This new edition reintroduces on the central texts of late nineteenth-century political thought. In addition to the fourth and final edition of the Philosophical Theory of the State, the editors have added a comprehensive selection of Bosanquet's most important essays on political theory and social policy. Also added is a detailed new introduction, a guide to further reading, and an index. Together they make clear the social and political background and implications of Bosanquet's political philosophy and allow a more complete understanding of British idealism.

Unemployment, poverty and the role of the state were themes which structured the discourse of social theory and the developing social legislation in Britain at the end of the Victorian period and the early twentieth century. This collection examines the neglected contribution of Bernard and Helen Bosanquet to that contemporary maelstrom of ideas about the condition of the people, the process of social reform and the practice of social work. Like their contemporaries Sidney and Beatrice Webb, the Bosanquets were a significant partnership integrating philosophy and practice, theory and action. Bernard Bosanquet, the Idealist philosopher, is best known for his study The Philosophical Theory of the State. His wife Helen, economist and social worker, was a member of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws (1905-9) and between 1909 and 1921, editor of the Charity Organisation Review. Themselves selective supporters of state welfare schemes, they helped to re-fashion the Charity Organisation Society away from its nineteenth century individualism by their advocacy of organic social collectivism. But character, self development and responsibility remained central tenets of their welfare programme. This collection re-publishes most of the Bosanquets' principal books and articles relating to the philosophy of the state and the practice of welfare. The development of their ideas in the context of their own time, and their relevance to current debates in the theory and practice of welfare, forms the basis of a substantial introduction by David Gladstone, the series editor.