John Stuart Mill (May 20, 1806 – May 8, 1873), commonly cited as J. S. Mill, was a British philosopher, political economist and civil servant. One of the most influential thinkers in the history of classical liberalism, he made major contributions to social theory, political theory, and political economy. Called "the most influential English-speaking philosopher of the nineteenth century", John Mill developed a political concept that justified the freedom of the individual as opposed to unlimited state and social control. His thoughts are popular and relevant to this day.
John Stuart Mill: philosophy of freedom and rationalism
Mill was a proponent of utilitarianism, an ethical theory developed by his predecessor, Jeremy Bentham. He took part in the study of scientific methodology, although his knowledge on this topic was based on the work of other thinkers, in particular, William Whewell, John Herschel and Auguste Comte, as well as on research conducted byAlexander Bain. Mill entered into a written discussion with Whewell.
Member of the Liberal Party, he was also the second Member of Parliament to call for women's suffrage after Henry Hunt in 1832.
Biography of John Stuart Mill, briefly
Our hero was born on 13th Rodney Street in Pentonville, Middlesex, the eldest son of Scottish philosopher, historian and economist James Mill and Harriet Barrow. John Mill was educated by his father with the advice and assistance of Jeremy Bentham and Francis Place. He was given an extremely strict upbringing and was deliberately limited in his interactions with peers other than siblings. His father, a follower of Bentham and a supporter of associativity, wanted to raise a genius intellectual who would promote utilitarianism after he and Bentham died.
John Mill was a very developed child. He describes his education in his autobiography. At the age of three, he was taught Greek. By the age of eight, he had read Aesop's Fables, Xenophon's Anabasis and all of Herodotus, and was also familiar with the works of Lucian, Diogenes Laertes, Isocrates and Plato's six dialogues. He also read history in English and studied arithmetic, physics and astronomy.
Young talent
At the age of eight, Mill began studying Latin, Euclid and algebra, and was appointed school teacher for the youngest children in the family. His main interest was still history, but he learned all the Latin and Greekauthors and by the age of ten could easily read Plato and Demosthenes. His father also thought it was important for the young John Mill to study poetry and learn how to write poetry. One of the earliest poetic compositions of our hero was a continuation of the Iliad. In his free time, he also enjoyed reading about the natural sciences. He was also interested in popular novels such as Don Quixote and Robinson Crusoe.
Interest in politics and economics
His father's work, A History of British India, was published in 1818. Immediately thereafter, at about the age of twelve, the young child prodigy began to carefully study scholastic logic, while simultaneously reading Aristotle's logical treatises in the original language. The following year he was introduced to political economy and studied Adam Smith and David Ricardo with his father, eventually developing his classical economics of the factors of production. The son's knowledge of economics helped his father in writing The Element of Political Economy in 1821, a textbook to propagate the ideas of Ricardian economics. However, the book was not popular. Ricardo, who was a close friend of our hero's father, used to invite young Mill to his house for a walk to talk about political economy.
At the age of fourteen, Mill spent a year in France with the family of Sir Samuel Bentham, brother of Jeremy Bentham. The landscape he saw instilled in him a lifelong love of the mountains. The lively and friendly way of life of the French also made a deep impression on him.impression. In Montpellier, he attended winter courses in chemistry, zoology, logic, and advanced mathematics. In Paris, he spent several days at the home of the famous economist Jean-Baptiste Say, a friend of Father Mill. There he met many leaders of the Liberal Party, as well as other famous Parisians, including Henri Saint-Simon.
Identity Crisis
At the age of twenty, John Mill fell into depression and even thought about suicide. According to the introductory paragraphs of chapter V of his autobiography, he asked himself if the creation of a just society was the goal of his life, would it really make him happy? His heart answered no, and it is not surprising that he lost his taste for life because of the pursuit of this goal. After all, William Wordsworth's poetry showed him that beauty breeds compassion for others and stimulates joy. With new joy, he continued to strive for a just society, but with great pleasure for himself. He considered this episode one of the most important shifts in his thinking.
Friendship and Influence
Mill was on friendly terms with Auguste Comte, the founder of positivism and sociology. Comte's sociology was rather an early philosophy of science.
As a nonconformist who refused to subscribe to the thirty-nine articles of the Church of England, Mill was not eligible to study at Oxford or Cambridge University. Instead, he followed his father to work for the East India Company and entered University College London to take a courselectures of John Austin, the first professor of jurisprudence. He was elected a foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1856.
Official career
Mill's career as a colonial administrator with the British East India Company lasted from the age of 17, from 1823 to 1858, when the company was abolished in favor of direct British crown rule over India. In 1836 he was appointed to the Political Department, where he was in charge of correspondence relating to the Company's relations with the princely states of India, and in 1856 he was finally appointed to the office of Auditor of Indian Correspondence.
Main works and ideas
There are many books that John Mill wrote - "On Freedom", "A Few Words on Non-Interference", etc. In these and other works, our hero defended British imperialism, arguing that there is a fundamental difference between civilized and barbarian peoples. Mill believed that countries such as India and China were once progressive, but now they had become stagnant and barbaric, legitimizing British rule as benevolent despotism "provided the goal was to improve [the barbarians]". When the crown gained control of the colonies in India, he was instructed to improve the laws of government over these lands. Thus, he became the author of the Memorandum for Improvements in the Government of India. He was offered a seat on the Council of India, a body set up to advise the newSecretary of State for that colony, but he refused, citing his opposition to the new system of government.
Private life
In 1851, Mill married Harriet Taylor after 21 years of friendship. Taylor was married when they met and their relationship was close but apparently chaste, friendly and platonic until the death of her husband. Brilliant in her own right, Taylor was a significant influence on Mill's work and ideas, both during their friendship and during their marriage. Relations with Harriet Taylor inspired the thinker to fight for women's rights. He cites her influence in his latest edition of On Liberty, which was published shortly after her death. Taylor died in 1858 after a severe congestive lung disease, having been married to Mill for a happy 7 years.
Later years and death
From 1865 to 1868, Mill served as Lord Provost of the University of St. Andrews. During the same period, 1865-1868, he was Member of Parliament for Westminster. He represented the Liberal Party in Parliament. During his time as an MP, Mill advocated autonomy for Ireland. In 1866, he became the second person in parliamentary history to call for women to vote, a position he vigorously defended in later years. He also became an active supporter of such social reforms as the creation of trade unions and farmers' cooperatives. In Considerations on Representative Government, Millcalled for various reforms of parliament and the voting process itself. In April 1868, he approved the retention of the death pen alty for crimes such as aggravated murder.
Economics John Stuart Mill was fond of from a young age. He was an agnostic in his views on religion.
Our hero died in 1873 in Avignon, France, where his body was buried next to that of his wife. Whatever John Stuart Mill wrote about - about freedom, about morality, about politics and economics. But he always avoided the subject of death.
