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"Philosophers -- England -- Biography"
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John Stuart Mill
Nicholas Capaldi's 2004 biography of John Stuart Mill traces the ways in which Mill's many endeavours are related and explores the significance of Mill's contribution to metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, social and political philosophy, the philosophy of religion, and the philosophy of education. He shows how Mill was groomed for his life by both his father James Mill, and Jeremy Bentham, the two most prominent philosophical radicals of the early nineteenth century. Yet Mill revolted against this education and developed friendships with both Thomas Carlyle and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who introduced him to Romanticism and political conservatism. A special feature of this biography is the attention devoted to his relationship with Harriet Taylor. No one exerted a greater influence than the woman he was eventually to marry. Nicholas Capaldi reveals just how deep her impact was on Mill's thinking about the emancipation of women.
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John Stuart Mill : a very short introduction
\"John Stuart Mill (1806-73) is widely regarded as the leading liberal philosopher, economist, and political theorist of nineteenth century Britain. In his lifetime he was best known for his System of Logic (1843) and the Principles of Political Economy (1848). Today Mill is chiefly identified with On Liberty (1859), perhaps the definitive text of modern liberal statement of its subject, and probably the single most important work of modern political thought. Mill was also the first major male feminist thinker of the period (author of The Subjection of Women, 1869), and the first, as an MP, to introduce a bill for female enfranchisement before Parliament. This Very Short Introduction offers a brief survey of the life and key ideas of this most influential Victorian British writer. Moving chronologically, Gregory Claeys outlines the philosophical background out of which Mill developed, chiefly through the ideas of Jeremy Bentham and James Mill. He demonstrates how Mill's personal life, especially his 'mental crisis' of 1827, and his relationship with Harriet Taylor, were integral to his intellectual development. Throughout Claeys considers Mill's key works set within the context of his lesser writings and correspondence, and discusses the more controversial aspects of his thought concerning religion, secularism, and birth control.\"
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Newton and the origin of civilization
Isaac Newton'sChronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended, published in 1728, one year after the great man's death, unleashed a storm of controversy. And for good reason. The book presents a drastically revised timeline for ancient civilizations, contracting Greek history by five hundred years and Egypt's by a millennium.Newton and the Origin of Civilizationtells the story of how one of the most celebrated figures in the history of mathematics, optics, and mechanics came to apply his unique ways of thinking to problems of history, theology, and mythology, and of how his radical ideas produced an uproar that reverberated in Europe's learned circles throughout the eighteenth century and beyond.
Jed Buchwald and Mordechai Feingold reveal the manner in which Newton strove for nearly half a century to rectify universal history by reading ancient texts through the lens of astronomy, and to create a tight theoretical system for interpreting the evolution of civilization on the basis of population dynamics. It was during Newton's earliest years at Cambridge that he developed the core of his singular method for generating and working with trustworthy knowledge, which he applied to his study of the past with the same rigor he brought to his work in physics and mathematics. Drawing extensively on Newton's unpublished papers and a host of other primary sources, Buchwald and Feingold reconcile Isaac Newton the rational scientist with Newton the natural philosopher, alchemist, theologian, and chronologist of ancient history.
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John Venn : a life in logic
\"John Venn is remembered today as the inventor of the famous \"Venn diagram.\" The postmortem fame of the namesake diagram has until now eclipsed Venn's own status as one of the most accomplished logicians in his day. Praised by John Stuart Mill as a \"highly successful thinker\" with much \"power of original thought,\" Venn profoundly influenced nineteenth-century philosophers, ranging from Mill and Henry Sidgwick to Charles Sanders Peirce. Venn was heir to a clerical, Evangelical dynasty but religious doubts led him to resign Holy Orders and instead turn to an academic life, writing influential textbooks on probability theory and logic and advocating for education reform, including for women's education. Venn also collaborated with Francis Galton in the unofficial Anthropometrical Laboratory, and, through his writing and teaching, a direct line can be traced from Venn and his circle to the development of analytic philosophy in the work of W. E. Johnson, G. E. Moore, Bertrand Russell, and C. D. Broad. Through family descent, Venn was connected to eminent Victorians like Leslie Stephen and Virginia Woolf. This essential book explores Venn's life and work in context, taking readers on his journey from Evangelical son to Cambridge don. The picture that emerges of Venn, the person, is of a man with many sympathies-sometimes mutually reinforcing and at other times outwardly contradictory\"-- Provided by publisher.
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Herbert Spencer and the Invention of Modern Life
The English philosopher Herbert Spencer (1820 - 1903) was a colossus of the Victorian age. His works ranked alongside those of Darwin and Marx in the development of disciplines as wide ranging as sociology, anthropology, political theory, philosophy and psychology.
In this acclaimed study of Spencer, the first for over thirty years and now available in paperback, Mark Francis provides an authoritative and meticulously researched intellectual biography of this remarkable man that dispels the plethora of misinformation surrounding Spencer and shines new light on the broader cultural history of the nineteenth century. In this major study of Spencer, the first for over thirty years, Mark Francis provides an authoritative and meticulously researched intellectual biography of this remarkable man. Using archival material and contemporary printed sources, Francis creates a fascinating portrait of a human being whose philosophical and scientific system was a unique attempt to explain modern life in all its biological, psychological and sociological forms.
Herbert Spencer and the Invention of Modern Life fills what is perhaps the last big biographical gap in Victorian history. An exceptional work of scholarship it not only dispels the plethora of misinformation surrounding Spencer but shines new light on the broader cultural history of the nineteenth century. Elegantly written, provocative and rich in insight it will be required reading for all students of the period.
Mark Francis is Professor of Political Science at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand.
'The publication of Mark Francis's volume marks a significant moment not just for Spencer scholarship but for all historians of late nineteenth-century science. A great achievement - the book that Spencer studies has needed for quite some time.' - British Journal for the History of Science 'A magisterial study which is likely to remain a standard reference on its subject for many years to come.' - History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 'Francis has produced an important and intelligent book not only on Spencer, but also on his political, scientific, social, and religious context in mid-Victorian Britain. In relocating the assumptions about Victorian politics, social science, and evolutionary biology, this work deserves a wide audience, within and well beyond historical scholarship.' - The Historical Journal
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Philosopher
The story of Ted Honderich, philosopher, a story of a perilous philosophical life, marked by critical examination, and a compelling personal life full of human drama. This is the story of Ted Honderich's perilous progress from boyhood in Canada to the Grote Professorship of Mind and Logic at University College London, A. J. Ayer's chair. It is compelling, candid and revealing about the beginning and the goal, and everything in between: early work as a journalist on The Toronto Star, travels with Elvis Presley, arrival in Britain, loves and friendships, academic rivalries and battles, marriages and affairs, self-interest and empathy. It sets out resolutely to explain how and why it all happened.
It is as much a narrative of Ted Honderich's philosophy. He makes hard problems real. Philosophy from consciousness and determinism to political violence and democracy comes into sharp focus.
Along the way, questions keep coming up. Does the free marriage owe anything to the analytic philosophy? What are the costs of truth? Are the politics of England slowly making it an ever-better place? Is an action's rightness independent of the mixture of motives out of which it came?
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The voice of Harriet Taylor Mill
The Voice of Harriet Taylor Mill is a work about collaboration: Harriet's life with her lover, friends, and members of her family; Harriet's joint work with John Stuart Mill; and the author's interaction with the reader. Jo Ellen Jacobs explores and expands the concept of biography using Salman Rushdie's analogy of history as a process of \"chutnification.\" She gives Harriet's life \"shape and form -- that is to say, meaning\" in a way that will \"possess the authentic taste of truth.\" In the first chapter, the first 30 years of Harriet's life are presented in the format of a first-person diary -- one not actually written by HTM herself. The text is based on letters and historical context, but the style suggests the intimate experience of reading someone's journal. The second chapter continues the chronological account of HTM until her death in 1858. In an interlude between the first and second chapters, Jacobs pauses to explore Harriet's life with John Stuart Mill; and in the final chapter, she argues persuasively that Harriet and John collaborated extensively on many works, including On Liberty.
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John Theophilus Desaguliers
This is the first comprehensive biography of a major, but neglected, figure of his age. John Theophilus Desaguliers made his mark on the eighteenth century in several diverse ways. He was an assistant to Sir Isaac Newton and later elucidated the difficult concepts of Newtonian physics in private lectures. He was a member of the Royal Society, and was presented with the Society's highest honour, the Copley Medal, no less than three times. He was a pioneering engineer: the water supply of Edinburgh, the ventilation of the Houses of Parliament and the first Westminster Bridge all owed him a debt. In a different sphere, Desaguliers became the third Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of the Freemasons which was founded in 1717. He is remembered worldwide for his seminal influence during those early days of Freemasonry. He also wrote poetry and had an influential circle of patrons, including George I and Frederick, Prince of Wales (whom he initiated as a Mason at a specially convened lodge at Kew). This biography, based on original research, describes a charismatic character who was a major figure of his age.
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