&t:For the actor Thomas Hill see Thomas Hill. Thomas Hill (born 31 October 1917 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada) is a Canadian actor who has starred in film and on television. ...

Thomas Hill Green (April 7, 1836 – March 26, 1882) was an English philosopher, political radical and temperance reformer, and a member of the British idealism movement. Like all the British idealists, Green was influenced by the metaphysical historicism of G.W.F. Hegel. He was one of the thinkers behind the philosophy of social liberalism. April 7 is the 97th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (98th in leap years). ... Year 1836 (MDCCCXXXVI) was a leap year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar (or a leap year starting on Wednesday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... March 26 is the 85th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (86th in leap years). ... Year 1882 (MDCCCLXXXII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Tuesday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... Motto: (French for God and my right) Anthem: God Save the King/Queen Capital London (de facto) Largest city London Official language(s) English (de facto) Unification    - by Athelstan AD 927  Area    - Total 130,395 km² (1st in UK)   50,346 sq mi  Population    - 2006 est. ... A philosopher is a person who thinks deeply regarding people, society, the world, and/or the universe. ... The term Radical (latin radix meaning root) has been used since the late 18th century as a label in political science for those favoring or trying to produce thoroughgoing political reforms which can include changes to the social order to a greater or lesser extent. ... A cartoon from Australia ca. ... British idealism was a philosophical movement that was influential in Britain during the mid to late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. ... Plato and Aristotle (right), by Raphael (Stanza della Segnatura, Rome). ... Historicism is a term which applies to a number of theories of culture or historical development which place the greatest weight on two factors: that there is an organic succession of developments, that local conditions and peculiarities influence the results in a decisive way It can be contrasted with reductionist... Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (August 27, 1770 - November 14, 1831) was a German philosopher born in Stuttgart, Württemberg, in present-day southwest Germany. ... Social liberalism is either a synonym for new liberalism or a label used by progressive liberal parties in order to differentiate themselves from the more conservative liberal parties, especially when there are two or more liberal parties in a country. ...

Life

Green was born at Birkin, a village in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England, of which his father was rector. On the paternal side he was descended from Oliver Cromwell, whose honest, sturdy independence of character he seemed to have inherited. His education was conducted entirely at home until, at the age of fourteen, he entered Rugby, where he remained five years. For Jane Birkin, go here Birkin is a village and civil parish in the south-west of the Selby district of North Yorkshire, England. ... The West Riding as an administrative county prior to its abolition in 1974. ... Motto: (French for God and my right) Anthem: God Save the King/Queen Capital London (de facto) Largest city London Official language(s) English (de facto) Unification    - by Athelstan AD 927  Area    - Total 130,395 km² (1st in UK)   50,346 sq mi  Population    - 2006 est. ... Oliver Cromwell (April 25, 1599–September 3, 1658) was an English military and political leader best known for making England a republic and leading the Commonwealth of England. ... A view of Rugby School from The Close, the playing field where according to legend Rugby was invented Rugby School, located in the town of Rugby, Warwickshire, is one of the oldest public schools in England and is one of the major co-educational boarding schools in the country. ...

In 1855, he became an undergraduate member of Balliol College, Oxford, of which society he was, in 1860, elected fellow. His life, henceforth, was devoted to teaching (mainly philosophical) in the university — first as college tutor, afterwards, from 1878 until his death as Whyte's Professor of Moral Philosophy. The lectures he delivered as professor form the substance of his two most important works, viz, the Prolegomena to Ethics and the Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation, which contain the whole of his positive constructive teaching. These works were not published until after his death, but Green's views were previously known indirectly through the Introduction to the standard edition of Hume's works by Green and T. H. Grose (d. 1906), fellow of Queen's College, in which the doctrine of the "English" or "empirical" philosophy was exhaustively examined. College name Balliol College Named after John de Balliol Established 1263 Sister College St Johns Master Andrew Graham JCR President Jack Hawkins Undergraduates 403 MCR President Chelsea Payne Graduates 228 Homepage Boatclub Balliol College, founded in 1263, is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in... Endowed in 1621 by Thomas White (c. ... David Hume (April 26, 1711 – August 25, 1776)[1] was a Scottish philosopher, economist, and historian. ... College name The Queens College Collegii Reginae Named after Queen Philippa of Hainault Established 1341 Sister College Pembroke College Provost Sir Alan Budd JCR President Vishal Mashru Undergraduates 350 MCR President Matthias Range Graduates 133 Homepage Boatclub High Street entrance to Queens College from the main quad. ...

As an educationalist, he helped to found the City of Oxford High School for Boys. The City of Oxford High School for Boys was founded in 1881 in a Victorian stone building designed by Sir Thomas Jackson. ...

Thought

Hume's empiricism, combined with a belief in biological evolution (derived from Herbert Spencer), was the chief feature in English thought during the third quarter of the 19th century. Green represents primarily the reaction against doctrines which, when carried out to their logical conclusion, not only "rendered all philosophy futile," but were fatal to practical life. By reducing the human mind to a series of unrelated atomic sensations, this teaching destroyed the possibility of knowledge, and further, by representing man as a "being who is simply the result of natural forces," it made conduct, or any theory of conduct, unmeaning; for life in any human, intelligible sense implies a personal self which (1) knows what to do, (2) has power to do it. Green was thus driven, not theoretically, but as a practical necessity, to raise again the whole question of man in relation to nature. When (he held) we have discovered what man in himself is, and what his relation to his environment is, we shall then know his function--what he is fitted to do. In the light of this knowledge we shall be able to formulate the moral code, which, in turn, will serve as a criterion of actual civic and social institutions. These form, naturally and necessarily, the objective expression of moral ideas, and it is in some civic or social whole that the moral ideal must finally take concrete shape. In philosophy generally, empiricism is a theory of knowledge emphasizing the role of experience in the formation of ideas, while discounting the notion of innate ideas. ... This article is about evolution in biology. ... Herbert Spencer (27 April 1820 – 8 December 1903) was an English philosopher and prominent classic-liberal political theorist. ... Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ... Personification of knowledge (Greek Επιστημη, Episteme) in Celsus Library in Ephesos, Turkey. ...

What is man?

To ask "What is man?" is to ask "What is experience?" for experience means that of which I am conscious. The facts of consciousness are the only facts which, to begin with, we are justified in asserting to exist. On the other hand, they are valid evidence for whatever is necessary to their own explanation, i.e. for whatever is logically involved in them. Now the most striking characteristic of man, that in fact which marks him specially, as contrasted with other animals, is self-consciousness. The simplest mental act into which we can analyse the operations of the human mind--the act of sense-perception--is never merely a change, physical or psychical, but is the consciousness of a change. Consciousness is a quality of the mind generally regarded to comprise qualities such as subjectivity, self-awareness, sentience, sapience, and the ability to perceive the relationship between oneself and ones environment. ...

Human experience consists, not of processes in an animal organism, but of these processes recognized as such. That which we perceive is from the outset an apprehended fact—that is to say, it cannot be analysed into isolated elements (so-called sensations) which, as such, are not constituents of consciousness at all, but exist from the first as a synthesis of relations in a consciousness which keeps distinct the "self" and the various elements of the "object," though holding all together in the unity of the act of perception. In other words, the whole mental structure we call knowledge consists, in its simplest equally with its most complex constituents, of the "work of the mind." Locke and Hume held that the work of the mind was eo ipso unreal because it was "made by" man and not "given to" man. It thus represented a subjective creation, not an objective fact. But this consequence follows only upon the assumption that the work of the mind is arbitrary, an assumption shown to be unjustified by the results of exact science, with the distinction, universally recognized, which such science draws between truth and falsehood, between the real and "mere ideas." This (obviously valid) distinction logically involves the consequence that the object, or content, of knowledge, viz., reality, is an intelligible ideal reality, a system of thought relations, a spiritual cosmos. How is the existence of this ideal whole to be accounted for? Only by the existence of some "principle which renders all relations possible and is itself determined by none of them"; an eternal self-consciousness which knows in whole what we know in part. To God the world is, to man the world becomes. Human experience is God gradually made manifest. This article is about John Locke, the English philosopher. ... This article discusses the term God in the context of monotheism and henotheism. ...

Moral philosophy

Carrying on the same analytical method into the special department of moral philosophy, Green held that ethics applies to the peculiar conditions of social life that investigation into man's nature which metaphysics began. The faculty employed in this further investigation is no "separate moral faculty," but that same reason which is the source of all our knowledge-ethical and other. Self-reflection gradually reveals to us human capacity, human function, with, consequently, human responsibility. It brings out into clear consciousness certain potentialities in the realization of which man's true good must consist. As the result of this analysis, combined with an investigation into the surroundings man lives in, a "content"--a moral code--becomes gradually evolved. Personal good is perceived to be realizable only by making actual the conceptions thus arrived at. So long as these remain potential or ideal, they form the motive of action; motive consisting always in the idea of some "end" or "good" which man presents to himself as an end in the attainment of which he would be satisfied, that is, in the realization of which he would find his true self. The determination to realize the self in some definite way constitutes an "act of will," which, as thus constituted, is neither arbitrary nor externally determined. For the motive which may be said to be its cause lies in the man himself, and the identification of the self with such a motive is a self-determination, which is at once both rational and free. The "freedom of man" is constituted, not by a supposed ability to do anything he may choose, but in the power to identify himself with that true good which reason reveals to him as his true good. This good consists in the realization of personal character; hence the final good, i.e. the moral ideal, as a whole, can be realized only in some society of persons who, while remaining ends to themselves in the sense that their individuality is not lost but rendered more perfect, find this perfection attainable only when the separate individualities are integrated as part of a social whole. Society is as necessary to form persons as persons are to constitute society. Social union is the indispensable condition of the development of the special capacities of the individual members. Human self-perfection cannot be gained in isolation; it is attainable only in inter-relation with fellow-citizens in the social community. Ethics is a general term for what is often described as the science (study) of morality. In philosophy, ethical behavior is that which is good or right. ... Ethics (from the Ancient Greek Ä“thikos, the adjective of Ä“thos custom, habit), a major branch of philosophy, is the study of values and customs of a person or group and covers the analysis and employment of concepts such as right and wrong, good and evil, and responsibility. ...

The law of our being, so revealed, involves in its turn civic or political duties. Moral goodness cannot be limited to, still less constituted by, the cultivation of self-regarding virtues, but consists in the attempt to realize in practice that moral ideal which self-analysis has revealed to us as our ideal. From this fact arises the ground of political obligation, for the institutions of political or civic life are the concrete embodiment of moral ideas in terms of our day and generation. But, as society exists only for the proper development of Persons, we have a criterion by which to test these institutions, viz, do they, or do they not, contribute to the development of moral character in the individual citizens? It is obvious that the final moral ideal is not realized in any body of civic institutions actually existing, but the same analysis which demonstrates this deficiency points out the direction which a true development will take. Hence arises the conception of rights and duties which should be maintained by law, as opposed to those actually maintained; with the further consequence that it may become occasionally a moral duty to rebel against the state in the interest of the state itself, that is, in order better to subserve that end or function which constitutes the raison d'être of the state. The state does not consist in any definite concrete organization formed once for all. It represents a "general will" which is a desire for a common good. Its basis is not a coercive authority imposed upon the citizens from without, but consists in the spiritual recognition, on the part of the citizens, of that which constitutes their true nature. "Will, not force, is the basis of the state." Duty is a term loosely appliedDuty to any action (or course of action) whichDutyDuty is regarded as morally incumbent, apart from personal likes and dislikes or any external compulsion. ...

Influence of Green's thought

Green's teaching was, directly and indirectly, the most potent philosophical influence in England during the last quarter of the 19th century, while his enthusiasm for a common citizenship, and his personal example in practical municipal life, inspired much of the effort made in the years succeeding his death to bring the universities more into touch with the people, and to break down the rigour of class distinctions. He was directly cited by many New Liberal politicians, such as Herbert Samuel and H. H. Asquith, as an influence on their thought. It is no coincidence that these politicians were educated at Balliol College, Oxford. Recently, Roy Hattersley has called for Green's work to be applied to the problems of 21st century Britain. Citizenship is membership in a political community (originally a city or town but now usually a country) and carries with it rights to political participation; a person having such membership is a citizen. ... A municipality or general-purpose district (compare with: special-purpose district) is an administrative local area generally composed of a clearly defined territory and commonly referring to a city, town, or village government. ... A university is an institution of higher education and of research, which grants academic degrees. ... Social class refers to the hierarchical distinctions between individuals or groups in societies or cultures. ... Herbert Louis Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel (1870-1963) was a British politician and diplomat. ... Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith, KG, PC (12 September 1852–15 February 1928) served as the Liberal Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1908 to 1916. ... Full name Balliol College Motto - Named after John de Balliol Previous names - Established 1263 Sister College St Johns College, Cambridge Master Andrew Graham (academic) Location Broad Street Undergraduates 403 Graduates 228 Homepage Boatclub Balliol College, founded in 1263, is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford...

Summary and difficulties

Of his philosophical doctrine proper, the most striking characteristic is Integration, as opposed to Disintegration, both in thought and in reality. "That which is" is a whole, not an aggregate; an organic complex of parts, not a mechanical mass; a "whole" too not material but spiritual, a "world of thought-relations." On the critical side this teaching is now admittedly valid against the older empiricism, and the cogency of the reasoning by which his constructive theory is supported is generally recognized.

Nevertheless, Green's statement of his conclusions presents important difficulties. Even apart from the impossibility of conceiving a whole of relations which are relations and nothing else (this objection is perhaps largely verbal), no explanation is given of the fact (obvious in experience) that the spiritual entities of which the Universe is composed appear material. Certain elements present themselves in feelings that seem stubbornly to resist any attempt to explain them in terms of thought. While, again, legitimately insisting upon personality as a fundamental constituent in any true theory of reality, the relation between human individualities and the divine Person is left vague and obscure; nor is it easy to see how the existence of several individualities—human or divine—in one cosmos is theoretically possible. It is at the solution of these two questions that philosophy in the immediate future may be expected to work. Universe is a word derived from the Old French univers, which in turn comes from the Latin roots unus (one) and versus (a form of vertere, to turn). Based on observations of the observable universe, physicists attempt to describe the whole of space-time, including all matter and energy and...

Works and commentary

Green's most important treatise—the Prolegomena to Ethics practically complete in manuscript at his death--was published in the year following, under the editorship of A. C. Bradley (4th ed., 1899). Shortly afterwards, R. L. Nettleship's standard edition of his Works (exclusive of the Prolegomena) appeared in three volumes: Andrew Cecil Bradley (1851–1935) was an English literary scholar. ... Richard Lewis Nettleship (December 17, 1846 - August 25, 1892), English philosopher, youngest brother of Henry Nettleship, was educated at Uppingham and Balliol College, Oxford, where he held a scholarship. ...

1. reprints of Green's criticism of Hume, Spencer, G. H. Lewes
2. Lectures on Kant, on Logic, on the Principles of Political Obligation
3. Miscellanies, preceded by a full Memoir by the Editor.

The Principles of Political Obligation was afterwards published in separate form. A criticism of Neo-Hegelianism will be found in Andrew Seth (Pringle Pattison), Hegelianism and Personality. George Henry Lewes (April 18, 1817 – November 28, 1878) was a British philosopher and literary critic. ... Andrew Seth (1856–1931), who changed his name to Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison to fulfil the terms of a bequest, was a Scottish philosopher. ... Andrew Seth (1856–1931), who changed his name to Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison to fulfill the terms of a bequest, was a Scottish philosopher. ...

See also:

• articles in Mind (January and April 1884) by A. J. Balfour and Henry Sidgwick
• in the Academy (xxviii. 242 and xxv. 297) by S. Alexander
• in the Philosophical Review (vi., 1897) by S. S. Laurie
• Geoffrey Thomas, The Moral Philosophy of T.H. Green (Oxford and New York 1988)
• W. H. Fairbrother, Philosophy of T.H. Green (London and New York, 1896)
• David George Ritchie, The Principles of State Interference (London, 1891)
• Henry Sidgwick, Lectures on the Philosophy of Kant (London, 1905)
• J. H. Muirhead, The Service of the State: Four Lectures on the Political Teaching of T.H. Green (1908)
• A. W. Benn, English Rationalism in the XIXth Century (1906), vol. ii., pp. 401 foll.

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

Arthur James Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour, KG, OM, PC (25 July 1848 – 19 March 1930) was a British statesman and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1902 until 1905. ... Henry Sidgwick Henry Sidgwick (May 31, 1838–August 28, 1900) was an English philosopher. ... David George Ritchie (1853-1903), Scottish philosopher, was born at Jedburgh, son of the Rev. ... Henry Sidgwick Henry Sidgwick (May 31, 1838–August 28, 1900) was an English philosopher. ... John Henry Muirhead (April 28, 1855 - May 24, 1940) was a British philosopher best known for having initiated the Muirhead Library of Philosophy in 1890. ... Alfred William Benn (1843–1915) was an agnostic and an honorary associate of the Rationalist Press Association. ... Encyclopædia Britannica, the 11th edition The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition (1910–1911) is perhaps the most famous edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. ... The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge—writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others—in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ...

See also

• Liberalism
• Contributions to liberal theory

Liberalism is an ideology, philosophical view, and political tradition which holds that liberty is the primary political value. ... This is an (partial) overview of individuals that contributed to the development of liberal theory on a worldwide scale and therefore are strongly associated with the liberal tradition and instrumental in the exposition of political liberalism as a philosophy. ...

Works online

• Prolegomena to Ethics (1883)
• Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation (1883)

External links

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry