John Stuart Mill definition of John Stuart Mill in the Free Online Encyclopedia.

Mill, John Stuart

Born May 20, 1806, in London; died May 8, 1873, in Avignon. English positivist philosopher. Economist. Public figure.

John Stuart Mill was the son of James Mill, under whose guidance he received a comprehensive education. From 1823 to 1858 he served in the East India Company. As a member of the House of Commons from 1865 to 1868 he supported liberal and democratic reforms.

Mill’s world view developed under the influence of the political economy of D. Ricardo, the utilitarianism of J. Bentham, the philosophy of G. Berkeley and D. Hume, and the associative psychology of D. Hartley and James Mill. His philosophical views are expressed in An Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy (1865; Russian translation, 1869), in which he rebutted English apriorism from the standpoint of phenomenological positivism. According to Mill, all knowledge is derived from experience, and the object of knowledge is our sensations. Matter is only the constant possibility of sensations, whereas consciousness is the capacity to experience them. Although he shared a number of the philosophical and logical orientations of A. Comte’s positivism, he rejected Comte’s sociopolitical doctrine, seeing in it a system of spiritual and political despotism that ignored the importance of human freedom and individuality (Auguste Comte and Positivism, 1865; Russian translation, 1867).

Mill’s most important work, A System of Logic (vols. 1–2, 1843; most recent Russian translation, 1914), contains an inductionist treatment of logic as the general methodology of the sciences. Mill expounds the doctrines of names and propositions, of deductive (syllogistic) conclusions, of induction and the methods of inductive analysis of causal dependence, of the methods of cognition that are subsidiary to induction, of fallacies, and of the logic of the moral sciences.

In ethics (Utilitarianism, 1863; most recent Russian translation, 1900), Mill also proceeded from the conception of the experiential origin of moral feelings and principles. Developing the utilitarian ethics of Bentham, according to which the value of behavior is determined by the pleasure it brings, Mill recognized not only egocentric aspirations but also disinterested ones. In public life people’s egoism is disciplined because they must take mutual interests into account. Thus, developed moral feeling is revealed in the aspiration to achieve not a maximum of personal happiness but the “greatest common good.”

A. L. SUBBOTIN

Condemning the vices of the capitalist system (the worship of money, inequality in property, and the low standard of living of the working people), Mill was an adherent of bourgeois reformism. In Principles of Political Economy and Certain of Their Additions to Social Philosophy (1848; Russian translation, vols. 1–2, 1865), he endeavored to give a systematic account of the ideas of contemporary bourgeois political economy. Seeking to avoid the contradictions characteristic of classical political economy, Mill eclectically merged the views of classical political economy with the distorted, oversimplified views of J. B. Say, N. Senior, and T. Malthus. For this he was criticized by Marx (K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 23, pp. 17, 624–25, and notes).

L. G. SUPERFIN

WORKS

Letters, vols. 1–2. London, 1910.
In Russian translation:
O svobode, 2nd ed. St. Petersburg, 1906.
Rassuzhdeniia i issledovaniia politicheskie, filosofskie i istoricheskie, parts 1–3. St. Petersburg, 1864–65.
Razmyshleniia o predstavitel’nom pravlenii, fascs. 1–2. St. Petersburg, 1863–64.
Angliia i Irlandiia. Kharkov, 1873.
Podchinennost’ zhenshchiny. St. Petersburg, 1906.
Avtobiografiia. Moscow, 1896.

REFERENCES

Rossel’, lu. “D. S. Mill’ i ego shkola.” Vestnik Evropy, 1874, nos. 5, 6, 7, 10, 12.
Tugan-Baranovskii, M. D. S. Mill’: Ego zhizn’ i ucheno-literaturnaia deiatel’nost’ St. Petersburg, 1892.
Saenger, S. D. St. Mill’ ego zhizn’ i proizvedeniia. St. Petersburg, 1903. (Translated from German.)
Chernyshevskii, N. G. “Ocherki iz politicheskoi ekonomii (po Milliu).” Poln. sobr. soch., vol. 9. Moscow, 1949.
Trakhtenberg, O. V. Ocherki po istorii filosofii i sotsiologii Anglii XIX v. Moscow, 1959.
Anschutz, R. P. The Philosophy of J. S. Mill. Oxford, 1953.
Britton, K. J. S. Mill. London, 1953.
Packe, M. S. The Life of J. S. Mill. New York, 1954.
Ryan, A. The Philosophy of J. S. Mill. London, 1970.
McCloskey, H. J. J. S. Mill. New York, 1971.

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