Collected Essays in Speculative Philosophy, by James Bradley, ed. Sean J. McGrath, Edinburgh University Press, 2021

Abstract

James Bradley was an Anglo-British philosopher who spent his professional career teaching at Memorial University of Newfoundland from 1988 to his untimely death from cancer in 2012. Though his written output is not as substantial as many of his contemporaries, he has nonetheless achieved, through reputation and a fecundity of ideas, something of an iconic status in the idealist community in Canada. Dominican University College awarded him an honorary doctorate posthumously. This collection of essays, long time in the making and edited by his protégé Sean J. McGrath, will be the litmus test for the staying power of Bradley’s speculative philosophy in the coming years. The Bradley Memorial Lectures or the James Bradley Lectureship, which began at Memorial University in October 2012, is an ongoing annual event, or at least it was until the beginning of the pandemic.