J S Mill's Posthumous Birthday 2022

J.S. Mill was a Londoner born in Pentonville, Islington, on this day early on in the 19th century. However, as an adult, he loved France, spent a great deal of time there, often using it as a bolthole when his views in England caused too much controversy. Both he and his wife, Harriet, are buried in Avignon, France.

John Stuart was taught at home by his father, James, who was extremely strict but nonetheless, put together the most arduous and impressive education ever attempted in history! I identify with John Stuart in so far as I was also educated at home but, for me, it wasn't a strict regime yet despite this I was taught a very broad curriculum, even at A Level, across various fields: Science, IT, Social Sciences, Humanities, Classics, Languages, Creative and Performing Arts, Sport. My mother's method wasn't discipline and a regimented day, it was a fluid,  co-operative way of working together. I was an active learner and involved participant in my education. Mill, on the other hand, was forced more into a passive role and had to work unreasonably hard! He was given Greek to do at three years old at home on his own whereas, at the same age, I learnt the (Suzuki method) violin with a small group of children. Definitely more fun! And I think J.S would agree because at the age of 20 he backlashed against his over analytical, dry, theoretical education becoming aware that his intellectual development had outstripped his emotional flourishing. Thereupon, he embarked on an interest in poetry which awakened his feelings. I believe this made J.S. a better philosopher than he otherwise would have been, as well as, a more socially aware one. J.S.Mill was also a constructive, inclusive thinker not a destructive, disparaging one which caused some to fault him as halfhearted. I'm inclined to think it was a reaction to his overcritical father! His inclusivity is best seen when he credits Harriet's influence on his thinking and his work. He praised her genius at a time when women were seen as intellectually weaker than men. (Has anything changed?) 

I think this says something important about education and that is that schools overfocus on academic work, usually as a solitary activity, to the detriment of the emotions and co-operative study, which reduces flourishing. This government might well exacerbate this further by reducing the teaching of creative subjects, such as music and art, preferring instead to promote practical, 'useful' subjects, such as, STEM. But as we can see with Mill, there's no such thing as an useless subject. The arts and humanities are every bit as important as the sciences. They support each other. Physics is not more important than Sociology. I've studied both and found both valuable!

So what I'm doing in this particular post is looking at JS Mill, the man. Who was he? This is often my starting point when researching any philosopher. Who is the person behind the writings. Of course, we can't be sure but we can piece together who someone was by looking at their biography and listening to their voice through their texts and letters. Otherwise, it's all too easy to conflate philosophers who touch upon the same topic areas. Nevertheless, that's not to say that fascinating parallels can't be drawn between philosophers.

For instance, Spinoza, Hume and JS Mill, all wrote about religion but each in a different way. Spinoza was a 17th century Dutch Jew and that immediately situates him at a particular time, place and gives an insight into his upbringing. His life revolved around his family's synagogue up until his father's death when he was in his early twenties. His mother died when he was a child. Mill, (19th century Londoner) on the other hand, as I have just said, was home educated by his overambitious, overstrict father whereas Hume, (18th century Scot) whose father was a distant cousin of the Earl of Home, attended Edinburgh University leaving there in his mid teens having rejected the family profession in law. All three were freethinkers and considered atheists. I think very few now see Spinoza as an atheist. He was, I believe, an orthodox Jew all his life. However, Hume and Mill are still seen as atheists although I'm inclined to dispute this. My view is that they were agnostics who were simply anti the Church establishment. Neither liked institutional religion. In the end, neither did Spinoza but he came to that conclusion from bad personal experience. I'm not aware that Hume and Mill suffered from similar appalling treatment from a religious institution. There is, I think, still a fair amount of misunderstanding of these three philosophers, maybe because they did not fit the Christian brief. 

Mill wrote more than it's possible for any one of us to study in a lifetime. I marvel how he managed this as well as work for the East India Company where his father held a high position. But he did lead a regimented life that he set out for himself and carried on even after marrying Harriet, and that meant his job did not take up the whole day so leaving him time for his philosophy, collecting rare plants abroad, and political life, including being an MP and advancing women's suffrage.