Name: Autobiography
Price: 346.00 ZAR
Availability: InStock
Author: John Stuart Mill
ISBN: 9781484889480

Type

Physical Book

Author

John Stuart Mill

Publisher

Createspace

Language

English

Pages

200

Format

Paperback

Dimensions

24.6 x 18.9 x 1.1 cm

Weight

0.37 kg.

ISBN13

9781484889480

Synopsis "Autobiography"

Excerpt: ...branches of physics, it is; but in some other cases, as in chemistry, it is not; and I then recollected that something not unlike this was pointed out as one of the distinctions between chemical and mechanical phenomena, in the introduction to that favourite of my boyhood, Thompson's System of Chemistry. This distinction at once made my mind clear as to what was perplexing me in respect to the philosophy of politics. I now saw, that a science is either deductive or experimental, according as, in the province it deals with, the effects of causes when conjoined, are or are not the sums of the effects which the same causes produce when separate. It followed that politics must be a deductive science. It thus appeared, that both Macaulay and my father were wrong; the one in assimilating the method of philosophizing in politics to the purely experimental method of chemistry; while the other, though right in adopting a deductive method, had made a wrong selection of one, having taken as the type of deduction, not the appropriate process, that of the deductive branches of natural philosophy, but the inappropriate one of pure geometry, which, not being a science of causation at all, does not require or admit of any summing-up of effects. A foundation was thus laid in my thoughts for the principal chapters of what I afterwards published on the Logic of the Moral Sciences; and my new position in respect to my old political creed, now became perfectly definite. If I am asked, what system of political philosophy I substituted for that which, as a philosophy, I had abandoned, I answer, No system: only a conviction that the true system was something much more complex and many-sided than I had previously had any idea of, and that its office was to supply, not a set of model institutions, but principles from which the institutions suitable to any given circumstances might be deduced. The influences of European, that is to say, Continental, thought, and especially...

John Stuart Mill

(Author)

View Author's Page

John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) was a British philosopher, economist, and politician, considered a key figure in liberalism and utilitarianism. Influenced by Jeremy Bentham and his father, James Mill, he wrote extensively on freedom, economy, and social justice. Among his most notable works are On Liberty (1859), where he defends individual rights against state control, and Utilitarianism (1863), where he develops this philosophical current.

His work also covered political economy with Principles of Political Economy (1848) and the philosophy of law with Representative Government (1861). Additionally, in The Subjection of Women (1869) he advocated for gender equality. His thinking continues to influence contemporary political philosophy and social theory.

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