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The central concern of this book is to demonstrate how Puritanism was a theme which ran through all Green's biography and political philosophy. It thereby reveals how Green's connections with Evangelicalism and his known affinities with religious dissent came from his way of conceiving Puritanism. In Green's eyes, its anti-formalist viewpoint made Puritanism the most suitable tool for avoiding the drawbacks of democracy. The key objective of the book is to illustrate how the philosophy elaborated by Green aimed to encapsulate the best of Puritanism whilst eschewing the dangerous abstractions of both Puritan philosophy and German idealism. It follows that Green's conception of positive and negative freedom, and his vision of political obligation, stemmed from his effort to revive the Puritan heritage rather than from an ambiguous flirtation with idealism. The book purports to show how the influence of Puritanism in Green's political thought is an element which can help to integrate the literature in the area, contributing to a better comprehension of a philosopher who, despite being unanimously considered as the founder of the so-called Oxford idealist school, had a very difficult and sometimes obscure connection with idealism. It has been widely argued that Green's relationship with idealism seemed to be infected by a religious germ which, because it was unrelated to German idealism, gave it a bad taste. This study aims to encourage further investigation into the nature and propagation of that germ in the British idealist School.

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Philosophie et théologie

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Publié par	Andrews UK
Date de parution	15 décembre 2016
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781845406936
Langue	English

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The ‘Puritan’ Democracy of Thomas Hill Green
With Some Unpublished Writings
Alberto de Sanctis
imprint-academic.com

2016 digital version converted and published by
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Copyright © Alberto de Sanctis, 2005
The moral rights of the author have been asserted.
No part of any contribution may be reproduced in any form without permission, except for the quotation of brief passages in criticism and discussion.
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“If God reveal anything to you by any other instrument of his, be as ready to receive it as ever you were to receive any truth by my ministry; for I am verily persuaded the Lord has more truth yet to break forth out of his holy word. For my part, I cannot sufficiently bewail the condition of the reformed churches, who are come to a period in religion, and will go at present no farther than the instruments of their reformation. The lutherans cannot be drawn to go beyond what Luther saw; whatever part of his will God has revealed to Calvin, they will rather die than embrace it; and the calvinists, you see, stick fast where they were left by that great man of God, who yet saw not all things. This is a misery much to be lamented ... Remember that ... for it is not possible the christian world should come so lately out of such thick anti-christian darkness, and that perfection of knowledge should break forth at once.”
J. Robinson, Exhortation , quoted by Green in ‘Four Lectures on the English Revolution’

Preface
This monograph is a revised version of a book published in Italian ( La democrazia “puritana” di Thomas Hill Green. Con alcuni scritti inediti , Florence, 2002), which was adapted from a doctoral thesis (Dipartimento di Studi Politici, University of Rome, La Sapienza, 1998). The central concern of my doctoral thesis was already the relationship between Puritanism and idealism in Green’s thought, but the material was not very well organised so that I entirely overlooked that Green’s main objective was the achievement of democracy in his own country . The Italian version of this book resulted from an effort to offer better evidence for some central points of my work, for instance how Green managed to make the teaching of Vane consistent with that of F.C. Baur. The opportunity for an English translation of the book was the chance of a lifetime. I have tried to sharpen the focus of my analysis further, revising the structure of the book as well as consulting the latest scholarship . My main concern is to show the significant role which the Puritan element played in the working out of Green’s view of democracy. The book focuses on a reconstruction of Green’s political thought which is meant to illuminate facets usually regarded as inconsistent with both the English and the German philosophical traditions. It provides an examination of Green’s position based on the assumption that Puritanism gave him the clue for harmonising idealism and empiricism and for attuning their differences and incompatibilities.
The central concern of the present study is to demonstrate how Puritanism was a theme which ran through all Green’s biography and political philosophy. It thereby reveals how Green’s connections with Evangelicalism and his known affinities with religious dissent came from his way of conceiving Puritanism. In Green’s eyes, its anti-formalist viewpoint made Puritanism the most suitable tool for avoiding the drawbacks of democracy. The key objective of the book is to illustrate how the philosophy elaborated by Green aimed to encapsulate the best of Puritanism whilst eschewing the dangerous abstractions of both Puritan philosophy and German idealism. It follows that Green’s conception of positive and negative freedom, and his vision of political obligation, stemmed from his effort to revive the Puritan heritage rather than from an ambiguous flirtation with idealism.
The book purports to show how the influence of Puritanism in Green’s political thought is an element which can help to integrate the literature in the area, contributing to a better comprehension of a philosopher who, despite being unanimously considered as the founder of the so-called Oxford idealist school, had a very difficult and sometimes obscure connection with idealism. It has been widely argued that Green’s relationship with idealism seemed to be infected by a religious germ which, because it was unrelated to German idealism, gave it a bad taste. This study aims to encourage further investigation of the nature and propagation of that germ in the British idealist School.

Acknowledgements
This book was originally conceived whilst I was a Ph. D. student at the University of Rome, where my feeling that the religious element embedded in ethics and therefore in politics needed to be investigated further was fully confirmed by attending the seminars of Mario D’Addio and Gaetano Calabrò. D’Addio’s analysis of the religious factor taught me that religion so concerns the inner life that it has to be seen in the light of a variety of complex and different attitudes. As a result, it can be classified according to preconceived typologies only with difficulty. This led me to investigate Green’s political thought against his Puritan background.
There are many people who provided me with help and assistance. To them all I would like to express my warmest thanks. To Anna Maria Lazzarino Del Grosso who always trusted in me and my research; to Maria Antonietta Falchi Pellegrini who first introduced me to Green; to Salvo Mastellone who was for me a sort of a Socratic teacher well able to make me give my best; to Claudio Palazzolo who offered me his suggestions; and to Peter Nicholson, the person I am most indebted to for my work on Green. By talking to him, I gained the impression of having really been introduced into the Greenian world. Apart from being a sort of additional supervisor for my doctoral thesis, Peter very patiently helped me to turn my Italian English into something more like English .
I owe much to the staff of the Balliol College Library, Oxford, to Alan Tadiello and its director, Dr Penelope Bulloch, who were always willing to help me when I was working on Green’s papers; and to that of the University Library of Genoa, particularly Claudio Risso. Special thanks go to the scholars with whom I discussed my work: Richard Bellamy, Maria Dimova-Cookson, Avital Simhony, Colin Tyler, Andrew Vincent; also to Giorgio Sola and the Department of Politics of the University of Genoa. This study has also benefited from comments and constructive suggestions from John Morrow. I am very grateful to the Department of Politics of the University of York, which hosted me as a visiting fellow and offered me the opportunity to give a paper on Green, and to the colleagues who invited me to give a paper on Green at the Political Studies Association conference held at the London School of Economics in 2000. These were important stages in advancing my reasearch.
The book is dedicated to my parents and Angela, who nourished my efforts with their love.

Introduction
Although Thomas Hill Green (1836–1882) was classified as an idealist thinker, most commentators noticed that his idealism was quite atypical. Seth, following Balfour’s footsteps, already realized the oddness of Green’s dialectic. [1] According to Milne, the notion of the concrete universal, which the British idealists took over from Hegel, revealed a certain ambiguity in their work. [2] As a result of its ambiguous character, if Green’s political philosophy has usually been investigated in the light of its relationship with idealism, [3] continuity with the previous British tradition has not been denied. [4] At the same time, those who, like Milne, Plamenatz and Mabbott, pointed out that there was a mingling of hedonism and idealism in Green, corroborated Collingwood’s view of the autochthonous character of British idealism. [5] Similarly, Monro argued that Green’s conception of general will was not incompatible with a utilitarian compromise which resulted from a multiplicity of contrasting interests cementing themselves through tradition and custom . [6] Alessandro Passerin d’Entrèves emphasised the inadequacy of an interpretation of Green’s political philosophy which exaggerated its idealism. [7] In this vein, PringlePattison ’s judgement, dating back to the end of the nineteenth -century, appears to be quite insightful. He observed that:
It is a serious mistake to suppose that, in Green, for example, we have simply a revival of Kant, or a revival of Hegel, or a combination of the two. Materials certainly have been drawn from both these thinkers; but the result is a type of thought which has never existed before, and of which it is absurd, therefore, to speak as an importation from Germany. [8]
Almost everybody agreed that Green’s relationship with German idealism, and particularly with Hegel, was a very controversial one.
Whilst those who favoured Green’s inclination to justify State intervention affirmed that Kant’s influence was more important than that of Hegel, [9] critics like Berlin claimed that Green added a religious dimension which made Hegel’s position much more dangerous as regards the problem of freedom . [10] Richter had reduced Green’s liberalism to a surrogate faith. [11] Richter realized that religion was a key element for understanding Green’s connection with idealism, but he missed the point. Richter correctly stated that Green saw in “Philosophical Idealism, the fulfilment and correction of Puritanism .” [12] However, Richter overlooked that the Puritan element was to be viewed as an instrument that could make a foreign philosophy which was considered abstra