Table of Contents
An Australian by birth and, in many ways character, Hedley Bull stands as one of the most prominent theorists of twentieth century British international relations.[1] The author of the highly regarded 1977 work The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics, Bull is most commonly characterised as standing alongside Martin Wight as one of the most prominent members of the so-called ‘English School’ of international relations.[2] In particular, much has been made in recent scholarship of the extent to which Bull was influenced by Wight, Tim Dunne’s history of the ‘English School’ noting that Bull not only stands in a pattern of intellectual lineage that extends from Wight to Bull’s student R.J. Vincent, but ‘thought about International Relations in quintessentially Wightean terms’.[3]
In large part, this impression is derived from Bull’s own assessment of his intellectual development. In particular, Bull is known to have attended Wight’s famous lecture series as a junior academic at the London School of Economics (LSE) in the mid-1950s and readily admitted that the experience exerted a ‘profound impression’ upon him. Bull even went so far as to write that he ‘felt in the shadow of Martin Wight’s thought—humbled by it, a constant borrower from it, always hoping to transcend it but never able to escape from it’.[4] Similarly, the preface of his most famous work, The Anarchical Society, speaks of the ‘profound debt’ Bull felt he owed Wight for demonstrating to him ‘that International Relations could be made a subject’.[5]
However, alongside Wight, a number of other figures have also been credited with influencing Bull’s intellectual development. Among the most prominent stand H.L.A. Hart,[6] one of the most important legal theorists of the twentieth century who taught Bull during his time at Oxford, and C.A.W. Manning, the figure responsible for appointing him to his first assistant lectureship at the LSE.[7] What is somewhat surprising is that the influence of John Anderson, Bull’s teacher at the University of Sydney, has not been afforded sustained consideration in much international relations scholarship. Indeed, although intellectual histories of Bull’s thought occasionally mention in passing that Anderson must be considered one of his foremost influences, this association has not been afforded the attention it rightly warrants in thinking about the history of ideas in British international relations.[8] What makes this omission particularly surprising is Bull’s explicit acknowledgement of Anderson’s influence in the preface to The Anarchical Society:
My greatest intellectual debt is to John Anderson … a greater man than many who are more famous. He had little to say directly about the matters discussed in this book, but the impact of his mind and his example has been the deepest factor in shaping the outlook of many of us whom he taught.[9]
The Challis Chair of Philosophy at the University of Sydney from 1927 to 1958, John Anderson was, in David Armstrong’s view, ‘the most important philosopher who has worked in Australia’.[10] A Scot by birth and educated at the University of Glasgow, Anderson’s move to Australia was, as John Passmore writes, ‘the greatest piece of intellectual good fortune our country has ever experienced’.[11] Although he only published one book during his lifetime, Education and Politics—three editions of collected articles and lectures, Studies in Empirical Philosophy; Education and Inquiry; and Art and Reality have been published posthumously while his Lecture Notes and Other Writings have been made available on-line—his influence extended to a number of realms.[12] In the field of philosophy, Anderson expounded the merits of what A.J. (Jim) Baker has termed ‘Australian realism’, a form of extreme philosophical realism, at a time when idealism was still the dominant mode of thought in Australian philosophy.[13] A ‘theoretical advisor’ to the Communist Party of Australia and later associate of the United Front Against Fascism, Friends of the Soviet Union, and the Trotskyist Workers Party, Anderson was also well known for his socialist sentiments. In Australian society, Anderson is best remembered as a public controversialist who twice instigated censure motions in the New South Wales and Federal parliaments for his outspoken views on censorship, war memorials, sexual liberation, and the role of religion in education.[14] However, it was among his students that he exerted the greatest influence. Indeed, even critics among his former students acknowledge Anderson’s impact on their intellectual development. For example, David Stove once wrote that ‘[t]he influence Anderson exercised was purely, or as purely as a human influence can be, purely intellectual. I never felt anything like the force of his intellect’.[15]
With this in mind, this chapter therefore seeks to assess precisely what the ‘intellectual debt’ Bull felt he owed to Anderson might be. It begins by further introducing the figure of John Anderson, focusing in particular on his teaching style and views on the role of the academic. The second section then goes on to outline what has become known in philosophical circles as ‘Australian realism’, Anderson’s particular mix of pluralism, empiricism and positivism, before considering the implications of his philosophical thought for his understandings of the nature of ethical inquiry, the role of religion in education and the functioning of human society. The second half of the chapter then turns to the thought of Hedley Bull and considers the influence of Anderson in three areas of Bull’s thought: his general approach to the study and teaching of international relations; his understanding of international society, in particular his pluralist outlook; and the scepticism with which he approached religious ideas and certain forms of moral thought. The chapter concludes by suggesting that although he deviates from Anderson’s more extreme criticisms of ethical inquiry, Bull’s general approach to the study of international relations, pluralist understanding of international society and, in particular, sceptical attitude towards religion were certainly consistent with the teachings of his earliest mentor. Interestingly, it is also with regard to these issues that Bull’s position was furthest from his more commonly acknowledged intellectual influence, Martin Wight.
[1] I thank Ian Hall for providing substantial comments on several earlier drafts of this chapter. This chapter was first published as an article entitled ‘Australian Realism and International Relations: John Anderson and Hedley Bull on Ethics, Religion and Society’ in International Politics, vol. 45, 2008, pp. 52–71 and, with minor amendment, is reproduced here with the permission of the publisher, Palgrave Macmillan.
[2] The existence and membership of what is known as the ‘English School’ of international relations is a somewhat contentious issue in contemporary scholarship. For contending views on who ought to be considered a member of the ‘school’ and whether or not it ought to be considered a school at all see Tim Dunne, Inventing International Society: A History of the English School, Macmillan, London, 1998; Tim Dunne, ‘All Along the Watchtower: A Reply to the Critics of Inventing International Society’, Conflict and Cooperation, vol. 35, no. 2, 2001, pp. 227–38; Hidemi Suganami, ‘A New Narrative, A New Subject? Tim Dunne on the English School’, Cooperation and Conflict, vol. 35, no. 2, 2000, pp. 217–226; Hidemi Suganami, ‘Heroes and a Villain: A Reply to Tim Dunne’, Cooperation and Conflict, vol. 36, no. 3, 2001, pp. 327–30; Hidemi Suganami, ‘British Institutionalists, or the English School, 20 Years On’, International Relations, vol. 17, no. 3, September 2003, pp. 253–71; and Ian Hall, ‘Still the English Patient? Closures and Inventions in the English School’, International Affairs, vol. 77, no. 4, 2001, pp. 931–42. On this matter I am inclined to agree with Suganami’s argument that ‘it would be better to do away with the notion of the school altogether in this connection — because, however unintentionally, it tends to give the impression that a clear boundary could, or should, be found between those who are in and those who are out’ (Hidemi Suganami, ‘C.A.W. Manning and the Study of International Relations’, Review of International Studies, vol. 27, 2001, pp. 91–107 (100)).
[3] Tim Dunne, Inventing International Society: A History of the English School, Macmillan, London, p. 136.
[4] Hedley Bull, ‘Martin Wight and the Theory of International Relations’, in Gabriele Wight and Brian Porter (eds), International Theory: The Three Traditions, Leicester University Press, London, 1991, pp. ix–xxiii (ix).
[5] Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics, 2nd edn., Macmillan, London, 1995, p. xiii.
[6] João .Marques de Almeida, ‘Challenging Realism by Returning to History: The British Committee’s Contribution to International Relations 40 Years On’, International Relations, vol. 17, no. 3, 2003, pp. 273–303 (p. 292).
[7] John Donald Bruce Miller, ‘Hedley Bull, 1932–1985’, in J.D.B. Miller and R.J. Vincent (eds), Order and Violence: Hedley Bull and International Relations, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1990, p. 3; and Suganami, ‘C.A.W. Manning and the Study of International Relations’, Review of International Studies, pp. 91–107 (95).
[8] Among those who do mention Anderson’s influence on Bull are Miller, ‘Hedley Bull, 1932–1985’, in J.D.B. Miller and R.J. Vincent (eds), Order and Violence: Hedley Bull and International Relations, Clarendon, pp. 2–3; J.L. Richardson, ‘The Academic Study of International Relations’, in J.D.B. Miller and R.J. Vincent (eds), Order and Violence: Hedley Bull and International Relations, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1990, pp. 175–77; and Robert O’Neill and David N. Schwartz (eds), Hedley Bull on Arms Control, Macmillan, London, 1987, pp. 2–3.
[9] Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics, p. xiv.
[10] David M. Armstrong, ‘Introduction’, to University of Sydney, Australian Studies Resources, Professor John Anderson 1893–1962, John Anderson Lecture Notes and Other Writings, available at <http://setis.library.usyd.edu.au/anderson/>, accessed 25 June 2008.
[11] John Passmore, ‘Anderson as a Systematic Philosopher’, Quadrant, vol. 21, 1977, pp. 48–53 (53).
[12] John Anderson, Education and Politics, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1931; John Anderson, ‘Classicalism’, in Studies in Empirical Philosophy, 2nd edition, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1962; John Anderson, in D.Z. Phillips (ed.) Education and Inquiry, Blackwell, Oxford, 1980; John Anderson, in J. Anderson, G. Cullum and K. Lycos (eds), Art and Reality, Hale and Iremonger, Sydney, 1982; and University of Sydney, Australian Studies Resources, Professor John Anderson 1893–1962, John Anderson Lecture Notes and Other Writings, available at <http://setis.library.usyd.edu.au/anderson/>, accessed 25 June 2008.
[13] Jim Baker, Australian Realism: The Systematic Philosophy of John Anderson, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1986, pp. 10–11.
[14] John Anderson, ‘Literary Censorship’, Honi Soit, 16 July 1930.
[15] David Stove, ‘The Force of Intellect: Fifty Years of John Anderson’, Quadrant, vol. 21, 1977, pp. 45–46 (45). For more comprehensive biographical treatments of Anderson see Armstrong, ‘Introduction’, to University of Sydney, Australian Studies Resources, Professor John Anderson 1893–1962, John Anderson Lecture Notes and Other Writings, available at <http://setis.library.usyd.edu.au/anderson/>, accessed 25 June 2008; Jim Baker (ed.), Australian Realism: The Systematic Philosophy of John Anderson; James Franklin, Corrupting the Youth: A History of Philosophy in Australia, Macleay Press, Paddington, 2003; S.A. Grave, The History of Philosophy in Australia, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, 1984; John A. Passmore, Memoirs of a Semi-Detached Australian, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 1997; Anthony Quinton, ‘Introduction’, in Jim Baker (ed.), Australian Realism: The Systematic Philosophy of John Anderson; and M. Weblin, ‘Background Notes’, to University of Sydney, Australian Studies Resources, Professor John Anderson 1893–1962, John Anderson Lecture Notes and Other Writings, available at <http://setis.library.usyd.edu.au/anderson/>, accessed 25 June 2008.