Although Bradley did not think of himself as a Hegelian philosopher, his own unique brand of philosophy was inspired by, and contained elements of, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's dialectical method.

Instead, Bradley was a leading member of the philosophical movement known as British idealism, which was strongly influenced by Kant and the German idealists Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling, and Hegel, although Bradley tended to downplay his influences.

The philosopher Robert Stern has argued that in this paper Bradley defends coherence not as an account of justification but as a criterion or test for truth.

"[8] Bradley's view of morality was driven by his criticism of the idea of self used in the current utilitarian theories of ethics.

Bradley held that our moral duty was founded on the need to cultivate our ideal "good self" in opposition to our "bad self".

The polemical attacks of G. E. Moore and Bertrand Russell against "Neo-Hegelianism," combined with the rise of anti-German sentiment and cultural morass brought upon by the First World War, resulted in British Idealism falling out of favor in Anglo-American philosophy.

There has in recent years, however, been a resurgence of interest in Bradley's and other idealist philosophers' work in the Anglo-American academic community.

[15] In 1914, a then-unknown T. S. Eliot wrote his dissertation for a PhD from the Department of Philosophy at Harvard University on Bradley.

Due to tensions leading up to and starting the First World War, Eliot was unable to return to Harvard for his oral defence, resulting in the university never conferring the degree.