Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T01:16:47.154Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

9 - John Stuart Mill, mid-Victorian

from II - Modern liberty and its defenders

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2011

Ross Harrison
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Gareth Stedman Jones
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Gregory Claeys
Affiliation:
Royal Holloway, University of London
Get access

Summary

Looking back on John Stuart Mill, we see him as the most important English philosopher of his century. For us, he fits naturally into what we think of as a British empiricist tradition between Hume in the previous century and Russell in the next. Yet this is not how Mill himself would have thought of his work. ‘Empiricism’ was something he criticised and wished to avoid. Nor did he look back to Hume. Instead, he looked back to his father, James Mill. His father, he thought, provided the most advanced analysis of the human mind, which for Mill was the central key to all philosophy. And, again following his father, he looked back before him to the account of the mind in David Hartley, building on Locke.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×