Relatività, condizionalità, verità. Bradley tra relativismo e metafisica alle porte del Novecento

This essay explores the origins of twentieth-century epistemological and metaphysical relativism in Victorian Britain, a cultural milieu where the relativistic sensibility – typically associated with Nietzsche and postmodernism – first took root. While contemporary discussions on relativism tend to foreground postmodern thinkers, the foundational role played by Victorian philosophers such as Hamilton, Spencer, and, crucially, Bradley is often overlooked. Although relativism traces back to Protagoras’s homo mensura, the Victorians were the first modern thinkers to elevate relativity to a guiding principle of both knowledge and life. Among them, Bradley stands out for the historical and theoretical significance of his work. A contemporary of Nietzsche, Bradley developed an original synthesis of Hegelian, Kantian, empiricist, pragmatist, and neo-realist ideas. Unlike many British idealists, he did not rely on Hegelian “absolute knowledge” to overcome relativity but attempted to reconcile Enlightenment philosophy of finitude and relativity with Romantic philosophy of the infinite and the absolute. Bradley’s theory of truth integrates both the inescapable limitations of human knowledge and the enduring metaphysical demand for totality. The essay proceeds in three parts: (I) an overview of the Victorian context as a backdrop for Bradley’s idealist reaction to relativity; (II) an analysis of Bradley’s logic, shaped by Lotze’s epistemology; and (III) a reading of his metaphysics as a reconciliation of logical skepticism and metaphysical absolutism. In conclusion, Bradley is presented as a valuable interlocutor for Nietzsche and his intellectual legacy.