Mill
(John
Stuart), along with Herbert Spencer,is
the greatest british philosopher in the nineteenth century.
“According
to my appreciation of the genius of Mill, Alexander Bain said, he was
primarily a logician, then a social or political philosopher”
General philosophy
of Stuart Mill
Beyond
Bentham
and
James
Mill,
the master which is directly connected to John Stuart Mill is
definitely David Hume,
whose associationist theories are behind Mill’s
psychology. Especially in the Review of Hamilton‘s
philosophy,Mill’s philosophy is purely empiricist,
but the psychological empiricism, combined with a certain amount of
physiology. There is an anachronism volunteer at the starting point
of this doctrine. The major hypothesis of evolution (Evolution), the
laws of inheritance and ancestral influences, these are all actions
with distant and powerful, which the psychologist is now required to
have and, even exceeding the horizon of simple psychology, led a
total conception of things entirely new, as is the case for
evolutionism of Herbert Spencer.
In all these philosophical modern speculation, Stuart Mill hardly
seems to have stopped, probably because he felt that, despite
appearances, they did not reach the issue in its depth of knowledge
and the be, and that this, far from helping to solve it, they
presupposed the solution.
The
reason for the conservative philosophy was certainly no ignorance or
disdain for what’s new. It could not consist in the firm belief
that it was above all individual experience is important, because all
experience presupposes the more general and it conditions and
determines any further developments.
As
a result, the analysis of psychic phenomena, reducing the
simple complex, the a priori in a process called contingent made
in every conscience from the most distant of his training, this is
the method inherited Hume Mill, which had himself received from
Locke. And if attacked, preferably at the last and perhaps the
greatest leaders of the Scottish school, to William Hamilton, that he
recognized in it the master who personified the doctrine of
intuitionism, not based, as in Kant, a critique of a priori
conditions of knowledge, but an arbitrary assertion of reason
dogmatic. Combat all forms of intuitionism, about all its
pretensions, this is the constant goal of Stuart Mill, the goal is
the unity of its controversial philosopher. A intuitionism ModeN
oppose to the idea of pre-existing data the theory of gradual
growth, in short, to the revelation of history: that is, the
philosophical, a process that will never be denied and success which
he deploys the resources of infinite subtlety.
We
speak not of immediate knowledge, awareness of external things
directly, for example! Knowledge of this kind can only be mediated,
and the testimony of consciousness, they seem so formal, open to
interpretation. Mill drives and so far the horror of dogmatism in the
school of Hamilton that he would prefer, rather than to subscribe,
enter into the paradoxes of the most radical skepticism. His sympathy
for the Pyrrhonism (Pyrrho) goes to justify the extreme claims of the
school acataleptique and defend against the charge to make the
contradiction.
“It
is quite possible, he argues, a person certainly of his doubt. Most
people, I think, must have found a similar case on the particular
facts which they were not completely certain, they were not quite
certain to be uncertain.
“(Chapter IX).
Skepticism,
investigator, analytical, which is implemented mental activity the
sharper is the eyes of the student of the Greeks, much preferable to
a party torpor of a philosophy of belief.
But
Mill
is
not a skeptic. The belief in the existence of the outside world, the
reality of spirits, and even “a world hyperphysical to God,” not
only he gave way, but he built on the only basis which, in its
philosophy, provides the strength, the basis of associations. The
combination – an indissoluble association – which leads us
irresistibly to feel simple, transient, to the notion of sensations
and possibilities perdurable last of these possibilities to separate
the notion of a permanent general of all the possibilities of
sensations . And this analysis we discover the origin of our ideas of
material substance and the physical world.
“Asks
me if I believe it to matter, I will ask my turn if one accepts my
definition. If so, I believe in matter, and the entire Berkeley
school like me […] The faith of humanity in the real existence of
visible and tangible objects, it is faith in the reality and the
permanence of the potential visual and tactile sensations, regardless
of any actual sensation.
”
According
to Mill,
such is the conviction of both naive and common sense, and the
argumentum baculinum, says he has no other meaning. Finally, the same
analysis, rather than focus on the objective side of our sensations,
applies only in the inner side and subjective, we also will design
the permanent possibilities of these states or states like mine to
mine, but perceived by others than by me, and so will be obtained the
notion of spiritual substance that I am and that spiritual substances
are other humans.
“The
belief that my mind exists, even though it does not smell, he does
not think that he is unaware of its existence, is reduced to the
belief in a permanent possibility of these states. ”
We
can not, on the occasion of the reduction famous, engage in
discussion about whether it is an improvement or a decline instead
against Hume’s analysis. It may be noted, however, that if Stuart
Mill offers us a cosmic synthesis firmer and more comprehensive, more
removed from the subjectivism of Hume, so close to the skepticism, it
has been asking the very fact that the association two concepts of a
new order, whose birth has some mystery here which may conceal a
secret loan to the doctrines of pure reason: the concept of
possibility and of permanence.
Logic by Stuart Mill
The
work logic of John Stuart Mill
is
justly famous. It is one of the most vigorous efforts were made to
change the character, purpose and object of a science that we had,
since Aristotle, accustomed to regard as concerning only the shape of
knowledge and as indifferent to his material. No one better than our
philosopher was living in to complete such an effort: his father and
his master, James Mill,
had not it not, from childhood, trained in scholastic exercises of
the discussion the most agile, and Analytics of Aristotle had they
not been one of the favorite books of his austere youth? Dedicated
logic and so he knew the secrets and detour weaknesses as him had not
escaped. Of all the faults that seemed to threaten the sterility, it
was a fundamental, hence all other derivatives, we mean the prejudice
accredited by theorists that it regulates only the consequence, ie, d
. the agreement of our ideas, and pays no attention to the truth.
Precisely
what Mill wanted to do was the substitution of truth to the result,
as the object of logic, in other words, this science, with it, become
“the theory of evidence.” We should, as a new point of view,
summarize what was his doctrine of names and prepositions. We should
especially trace the transformation he has done to the theory of the
syllogism. This reasoning, which has always passed for the precision
tool of deductive logic, was considered a process of inclusion is to
enclose specific terms in other more general terms themselves
understood in universal terms, and the art to accomplish these
interlocking successive boiled down, ultimately, the art of
syllogiser. The syllogism, according to Mill, is pursuing a different
goal, which is not to nest one inside the other classes of concepts,
but to bring groups of properties and characters. Under these
conditions, this operation will become more than a frivolous game, it
will be an instrument of knowledge. Induction, ie experience in this
area will be provided.
“For
her, the inductions will be established once and for all. One call to
the experience may be sufficient, and the result can be saved as a
general proposition, which is committed to memory or paper which is
then no longer than syllogiser”
Inductive
generalization operations, that what is true in any deduction.
Therefore,
it is clear that induction is not only understood, unlike the
classical traditions, in science the logician, but that it may form
the central division. Always anxious to avoid the assumptions that
provide some semblance metaphysical Stuart Mill
refuses
to justify the act by induction a priori principles, preferring the
risk of seeming to make a circle, instead of using a given
transcendent . Causality to which he belongs is inductive operation
itself as the result of specific induction, spontaneous, relentlessly
accumulated experience that has never wavered: the experience by
which history has determined invariable always and everywhere
preceded the phenomena, objects of our observation.
These inductions
were spontaneous: the maxim summarizes the causal inferences justify
the future, so that the association is that, ultimately, the logical
step that one might have thought beyond the bounds of infinity of the
association. Induce, as inferred, it is still a way to move from
particular to particular, despite the appearance of universality or
point of arrival or at the start, only road that leads only because
it neglects the deserts of the a priori to cross the fertile field of
observation and facts.
A
particularly serious doubt weighs up a science course in this way,
and the certainty that the guarantees will be considered precarious,
when one considers that Mill refuses to extend to the infinite
universe generalizations of an experiment that took limited theater
world. But Mill is not moved to a risk as remote, and has taught at
the school of Comte (positivism) to curb the ambitions of the human
mind, lucky with a localized and science, as Bacon advised, to
contain the growth of human understanding, reason with less need for
wings of lead.
Ethics by Stuart
Mill
Before
outlining the actual legal part of the philosophy of Mill, we must
mention one of his most original designs and the most suggestive,
which forms a link between his psychology and logic on the one hand,
and ethics, on the other. But the design itself can not be understood
unless we determine the attitude observed by our author with regard
to the problem of freedom. The thesis of free will is firmly opposed
by him, and the refutation that in fact it certainly raises the song
the most complete its review of Hamilton’s philosophy. Nevertheless
Mill was forbidden to profess a necessitarianism simple bending under
a fatality or external, or logical, the human will. Both the word
itself need it seems a misnomer. His determinism is of such nature
between the determinants of our actions reflected our desires, our
ideas and volitions are at the forefront. Our character we have not
imposed from without, for then reign in the human who knows what
psychological fatalism. We have a part in shaping our character and
this precisely because of our desire to shape: an element of truth is
the honor of the theorists of free will be highlighted.
That
they are satisfied with such a tribute and to accept as an equivalent
of freedom within this chain of determinism, that’s what we do not
have to vouch. At least Stuart Mill Should this
theory to make possible a special science which remains to be the
method and the results of moral and social surely can not be
overrated; to call it, named it himself forged the science of
ethology, or the formation of character.
An
ingenious and penetrating thinker could not fail in its moral, to
shine its know-how (or rather his ability to think). We will not
dwell much, however, to summarize. This is in spite of the ingenuity
and finesse that he could bring real property or renewal to a
doctrine which, since ancient times, was of Epicurus all his
perfection and even in England, the analysis of Hobbes, Hume, Bentham
was able to modernize, but not really overhaul. This doctrine, in his
book Utilitarianism (Utilitarianism) has exhibited extensively, is
that, starting from individual selfishness, goes from self-love to
the love of others and place, in meeting of that love, the ultimate
end of morality. On this new ground again, it intuitionism that fight
and it is a theory of acquisition that fits. It is enough, once
again, to use the influence of the association to make sense of the
process, hedonism itself, leads to altruism. Also with him
consciousness is not she, as she had been with Bentham, an empty
word. Without naming, needless to say, nothing resembling an innate
faculty, the word conscience, however denominated something natural,
that the association so strongly consolidated in the souls of
disinterested ideas with the ideas that the reasons for eudemonistic
act for the good of others end up spontaneously and substitute
themselves for reasons to obey our narrow interests. Thus gradually
the general happiness will appear as the happiness of each and all.
In this way morality have its purpose, under its ideal. Finally, the
association will also be able to account for the fact of the
obligation. This will be the association, through the active
intervention of a legislator, will base a theory of civil duty,
justice and law.
Stuart Mill’s
Social sciences and sociology
The
political and social philosophy of John Stuart Mill is independent of
all schools and it is impossible to understand in one of the
classifications used among the parties. In books such as the
Government representative and Freedom, we know solved
individualistic, concerned with avoiding the interference of power
much of the personal activity of citizens, as this share once
abandoned, any initiative would be at risk, stronger the springs of
human energy would find themselves relaxed. In all of us so it is an
inviolable asylum to which the public should stop respectful. Does
this mean that this asylum is infinitely extended and that the role
of public action will be reduced to a minimum of control, the degree
of intervention just enough so that many individuals observe the
mutual rights without which s’ collapse any civilian organization?
Our philosopher deems so little that it imposes on the state duties
of interference. Yes, Mill recognized as legitimate for the
government’s claim
“Impose
a legal obligation for parents to give their children a basic
education”
He
is in favor of legislative action regarding child labor, in order to
prevent the excesses of this work. High culture, exploration
companies and, in general, works long range, so useful to the social
body, but do not put just enough private enterprise: it is also the
political power to promote and to support them. It has more than once
protested in front of this part of the political program of Mill as
having an inconsistency. But this inconsistency, why did not make the
same criticism as the oracle of the Liberals, Adam Smith, who
professed a similar requirement with respect to the state? And does
it not a sign that the inconsistency complained of is more apparent
than real
Not
least is the original economic position held by Mill. His Principles
of Political Economy were among his writing one of those who
obtained the most lasting success, in a spirit compounds severely
scientific, filled with facts and observations, it is a model of its
kind. At the same time singularly bold views are pierced. It was, for
example, declared approval of the thesis Malthusian (Malthus, New
maltusianisme), whereby the evil to be avoided is for the states, not
the decline in births, but to some fool increasing their number. It
was also openly displayed a sympathy for the Communist propaganda
which he had in France, studying closely the development sympathy he
grew up to this point to argue that the difficulties opposed to
Communism “does weigh in balance a speck of dust, “if we put the
other side all the suffering and injustices that society so
desperately saddened. It was still a committed membership and
activist for the cause of social and political recovery of the woman.
At this point only because it brings a competition theory. He was on
the political platforms, the very active, very persistent and very
happy champion.
It
does remain to be done around this philosophy, which left outside of
it none of the provinces of thought and human activity, to note what
was his attitude toward theology. His criticism could hardly be more
different dogmas save made by religious metaphysics she had done with
other claims of intuitionistic thought. It knows that the criticism
that human reason. However, in addition to reason and parallel to the
right, there is another possibility that less severe and does not
cover a narrow discipline, a faculty that rises above the observation
and provides extensive career in range of possibilities: the
imagination that dream, beautifies, poetizes. It seems that Stuart
Mill would be handed over to the right of free care to address some
of the ruins that analytical reason was sown. The imagination can
restore the religious sentiment in its aspirations and hopes.
Religion of humanity, of religion itself hypernature, ie the divine,
that apparently it, the term unexpected depths to which the
empiricist nineteenth, century has produced.
