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(1846–1924) British philosopher. A convenient way of placing Bradiey's monism (see monism/pluralism) and idealism in context is to see him as finding logical and epistemological grounds for rejecting (1) an ultimate ontology of externally related facts (see logical atomism); and (2) a physicalism (see physicalism, materialism) of the influential physics-based kind (cf. Quine).This rejection rests on Bradley's often misunderstood argument to the effect that unconditional predication is incoherent. The argument is here stated for monadic predications in respect of a single individual as ultimate subject but it applies equally to relational predications with respect to pairs, etc. (Essays on Truth and Reality (1914) pp. 225–33; Appearance and Reality (1893) chs II, III; Principles of Logic (1883) vol. I, pp. 99–100).Assume ‘R’ is the proper name of an individual. If ‘Ra’, ‘Rb’, ‘Rc’, etc. express genuinely unconditional predications then the only condition under which, for example, ‘Ra ‘could be true would be R's being a, and the only condition under which ‘Ra’ could be false would be R's not being a. The truth value of ‘Ra’ could not depend on the truth values of any other of the propositions ‘Rb’, ‘Rc’, etc. Hence such propositions would all have to belogically independent of one another and any one of them could, as a matter of logical possibility, be the only one true, i.e. be ... log in or subscribe to read full text