Richard Lewis Nettleship (17 December 1846 – 25 August 1892) was an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

philosopher Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

Life

The youngest brother of

Henry Nettleship Henry Nettleship (5 May 1839 – 10 July 1893) was an English classical scholar. Life Nettleship was born at Kettering, and was educated at Lancing College, Durham School and Charterhouse schools, and gained a scholarship for entry to Corpus Chr ...

, he was educated at

Uppingham Uppingham is a market town and civil parish in the ceremonial county of Rutland, England, off the A47 between Leicester and Peterborough, south of Oakham. It had a population of 4,745 according to the 2011 census, estimated at 4,853 in 2019. ...

and

Balliol College, Oxford Balliol College () is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. Founded in 1263 by nobleman John I de Balliol, it has a claim to be the oldest college in Oxford and the English-speaking world. With a governing body of a master and aro ...

, where he held a

scholarship A scholarship is a form of Student financial aid, financial aid awarded to students for further education. Generally, scholarships are awarded based on a set of criteria such as academic merit, Multiculturalism, diversity and inclusion, athleti ...

. He won the Hertford scholarship, the Ireland, the

Gaisford Prize The Gaisford Prize is a prize awarded by the Faculty of Classics, University of Oxford for a composition in Classical Greek Verse and Prose by an undergraduate student. The prize was founded in 1855 in memory of Dr Thomas Gaisford (1779–1855 ...

for Greek verse, a Craven scholarship and the Arnold prize, but took only a second class in '' literae humaniores''. Nettleship became fellow and tutor of his college and succeeded to the work of T. H. Green, whose writings he edited with a

memoir A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based on the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autob ...

. He was fond of music and outdoor sports, and rowed in his college boat. He died on 25 August 1892, from the effects of exposure on

Mont Blanc Mont Blanc (, ) is a mountain in the Alps, rising above sea level, located right at the Franco-Italian border. It is the highest mountain in Europe outside the Caucasus Mountains, the second-most prominent mountain in Europe (after Mount E ...

, and was buried at

Chamonix Chamonix-Mont-Blanc (; ; (no longer in use)), more commonly known simply as Chamonix (), is a communes of France, commune in the departments of France, department in the regions of France, region in Southeastern France. It was the site of the f ...

Works

Nettleship left an unfinished work on

Plato Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the writte ...

, part of which was published after his death, together with his

lectures A lecture (from ) is an speech, oral presentation intended to present information or teach people about a particular subject, for example by a university or college teacher. Lectures are used to convey critical information, history, backgroun ...

logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the study of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It examines how conclusions follow from premises based on the structure o ...

and some

essays An essay ( ) is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a Letter (message), letter, a term paper, paper, an article (publishing), article, a pamphlet, and a s ...

. His long essay ''The Theory of Education in the Republic of Plato'' was published in ''

Hellenica ''Hellenica'' () simply means writings on Greek (Hellenic) subjects. Several histories of the 4th-century BC Greece have borne the conventional Latin title ''Hellenica'', of which very few survive.Murray, Oswyn, "Greek Historians", in John Boardma ...

''. His thought was

idealistic Idealism in philosophy, also known as philosophical realism or metaphysical idealism, is the set of metaphysical perspectives asserting that, most fundamentally, reality is equivalent to mind, spirit, or consciousness; that reality is entir ...

, embodying elements of

Hegelianism Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a 19th-century German idealism, German idealist. His influence extends across a wide range of topics from metaphysical issues in epistemology and ontology, to political phi ...

but also, in its account of the

Platonic Forms The Theory of Forms or Theory of Ideas, also known as Platonic idealism or Platonic realism, is a philosophical theory credited to the Classical Greek philosopher Plato. A major concept in metaphysics, the theory suggests that the physical wo ...

(''eide'', ''idiai''), markedly influenced by a particular reading of the

Kantian Kantianism () is the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher born in Königsberg, Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia). The term ''Kantianism'' or ''Kantian'' is sometimes also used to describe contemporary positions in philosophy of mi ...

categories. Many saw him as a model and example of philosophical honest and persistent philosophical inquiry. This did not prevent the undergraduates of Balliol from a gentle parody in the 1880 Masque of Balliol:

Roughly, so to say, you know, I am N-TTL-SH-P or so; You are gated after Hall, That's all. I mean that's nearly all.

The inchoateness of Nettleship's philosophical thinking is more apparent in the ''Philosophical Remains'' than in the separate volume of lectures on Plato's ''

Republic A republic, based on the Latin phrase ''res publica'' ('public affair' or 'people's affair'), is a State (polity), state in which Power (social and political), political power rests with the public (people), typically through their Representat ...

''. From that volume a definite view of the aims, limits and scope of Plato's text emerges clearly. Few historians of philosophy would now accept, however, Nettleship's view of the analogy of the Line (509e-511c, 534a) as involving throughout a temporal progression.See R. C. Cross and A. D. Woozley, ''Plato's Republic : A Philosophical Commentary'', London : Macmillan, 1964).

Selected bibliography

* *

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Nettleship, Richard Lewis 1846 births 1892 deaths 19th-century English non-fiction writers 19th-century English philosophers 19th-century English essayists Deaths from hypothermia English essayists English logicians English male non-fiction writers Idealists Kant scholars British lecturers People educated at Uppingham School Philosophers of history British philosophers of logic British philosophy academics Plato scholars

Life

Works

Selected bibliography

See also

References