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Autobiography
One of the greatest prodigies of his era, John Stuart Mill (1806-73) was studying arithmetic and Greek by the age of three, as part of an astonishingly intense education at his father's hand. Intellectually brilliant, fearless and profound, he became a leading Victorian liberal thinker, whose works - including On Liberty, Utilitarianism, The Subjection of Women and this autobiography - are among the crowning achievements of the age. Here he describes the pressures placed on him by his childhood, the mental breakdown he suffered as a young man, his struggle to understand a world of feelings and emotions far removed from his father's strict didacticism, and the later development of his own radical beliefs. A moving account of an extraordinary life, this great autobiography reveals a man of deep integrity, constantly searching for truth.
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1873
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About the author
John Stuart Mill
1,746 books1,796 followersJohn Stuart Mill, English philosopher, political economist, civil servant and Member of Parliament, was an influential liberal thinker of the 19th century. He was an exponent of utilitarianism, an ethical theory developed by Jeremy Bentham, although his conception of it was very different from Bentham's.
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November 27, 2021
سيرة حياتية وفكرية للفيلسوف والاقتصادي والسياسي البريطاني جون ستيورات مِل
حياة قائمة على الدراسة والفكر والعلم, البحث والقراءة والكتابة بدءا من الطفولة وحتى النهاية
حياة قائمة على الدراسة والفكر والعلم, البحث والقراءة والكتابة بدءا من الطفولة وحتى النهاية
June 27, 2011
Think you're pretty smart? Think you've read a lot of books? Think you've had a rigorous education? Prepare to be utterly humbled. Excellent slim volume about a brilliant and also a very good man.
November 13, 2018
The autobiography is such an ancient genre, St. Augustine having written his Confessions in 400 AD, that its conventions were already pretty fixed by the time that Mill finally completed his shortly before his 1873 death. His contribution to the genre is right in line with what we expect: an overview of his life, his work, his relationship (note the singular), and his likely legacy, balancing between honest modesty and fair self-regard. It's notable not just merely because of who he was - pioneering radical, influential politician, prescient philosopher, one of the most enduringly useful of the great modern thinkers - but because of how he thought, and though each chapter is written in that dense, fractally-claused 19th century style, the precision, honesty, and clarity of his sentiments comes across regardless. His descriptions of his own crisis of confidence, his admiration for his wife, and descriptions of his role in some of the most important political and philosophical debates of his time are still worth reading today, because aside from the historical recollections, he works in several other genres as well: implicit child-raising guide, a model for self-education and rational thinking, a self-help book on depression, advice on how to reform the political system from inside, and even some relationship goals. I'd previously read Nicolas Capaldi's biography of him and it's not bad, but there's nothing like going back to the source. This is definitely worth a stop after reading Utilitarianism and On Liberty.
His account of his childhood is fascinating. His father James Mill decided to raise him as a sort of knowledge-seeking missile, giving him nothing but impossibly ambitious classical homework and barely letting him interact with other children. The contrast between the dry tone of Mill's description of his father's methods and the profoundly ambivalent effects it obviously had on him is striking: Ancient Greek lessons at 3 years old, Latin at 8, rhetoric and history philosophy, all with scholastic discipline and criticism that sounds nearly as bad as the infamous British boarding school punishments of the day, because although his father never beat him, imagine having your father yelling at you because your elocution when orating a speech by Demosthenes at age 12 was not quite up to par. I was a fairly bookish child, so a boyhood of not having to go to school and just reading all day doesn't sound so bad, and yet I doubt that force-feeding you child literature like that is useful. A 10 year-old's interpretation of Thucydides can only ever be so good. This steroidal homeschooling did produce one of the most famous philosophers of all time, but it's not a surprise that although he respected and admired his father, Mill calmly states that he didn't love him. He would later endorse government-funded (though not government-run) mandatory education in On Liberty, so this reluctance to endorse his own schooling method is pretty interesting. One can only wonder if he would approve of the "guided self-direction" of the Montessori method as being a happy medium between the austere Plato's Republic-style force-feeding of his youth and the often-inflexible public school system we have today, or what he thought of Rousseau's system in Emile.
Of course, there's only so much you can learn from your father, even if your father is himself a major philosopher, so it's fortunate that James Mill knew many of the leading philosophic lights of the day. Mill spends many pages talking about how his personal relationships with David Hume, David Ricardo, Jeremy Bentham, etc. as a child and young man influenced his later thinking. James Mill was an autodidact himself, perhaps he wanted to try to hurry up his son's enlightenment by giving him access to people who had already read all those books. In a way that's almost more interesting than his homeschooling background - if you deliberately unleashed your kid on your smartest friends and let ask them as many questions as they wanted and your friends would tolerate, how would that mentorship affect them? Bentham was the main influence, of course, but Mill came into contact with many people who already were or would later go on to be very significant (he himself would become godfather to Bertrand Russell), and Mill is very perceptive about what he took and what he rejected from his mentors. There's an inherent tension between trying to devise an authentic personal philosophy that's true to yourself, on one hand, and on the other to race ahead as fast as possible, to stand on the shoulders of giants by learning from other people as much and as quickly as possible. I think that's where judgment and discernment come in, because ultimately you need the ability to say no to people, to choose what's important from what you take in and discard the rest, and indeed one can take much of Mill's philosophy as instructive guidance on how to choose wisely, not just between ideas but between anything.
And yet we are not mere utilitarian calculating machines, as Mill illustrates with his account of his spiritual crisis at age 20. It's a fascinating account of how he found that he was unable to derive personal happiness purely by the maximize pleasure-minimize pain ethos that underlay his own philosophy. One day in the autumn of 1826, he wasn't feeling so great (it sounds sort of like one of those Sunday afternoons that Douglas Adams so memorably described as the long dark tea-time of the soul), and he started asking himself some tough questions:
"In this frame of mind it occurred to me to put the question directly to myself, 'Suppose that all your objects in life were realized; that all the changes in institutions and opinions which you are looking forward to, could be completely effected at this very instant: would this be a great joy and happiness to you?' And an irrepressible self-consciousness distinctly answered, 'No!' At this my heart sank within me: the whole foundation on which my life was constructed fell down. All my happiness was to have been found in the continual pursuit of this end. The end had ceased to charm, and how could there ever again be any interest in the means? I seemed to have nothing left to live for."
There are a truly remarkable number of thought-provoking questions embedded in that paragraph that he answers explicitly or implicitly in the remainder of the chapter:
- Is it actually possible to find true happiness in abstract thought, in any degree? For anyone, or just some? Even if it was possible for you, would that happiness be sufficient? How do you balance the importance of your own "life of the mind" with the rest of your life?
- How does your own personal temperament affect your philosophy? Is something like utilitarianism more or less likely to be believed by happy people? Does switching (or reaffirming) belief systems really change your happiness in the long run, like feeling more confident in a nicer outfit? Can you think yourself sad?
- How important are our own beliefs about the world to you, not just your answers to "big questions" but even minor tastes and opinions? What would it mean if something you thought you really loved turned out to be empty, or flat wrong, or even actively negative to your ego?
- If you don't find joy in something's ultimate conclusion, can there be anything positive about any aspect of it at all? Can you go through the motions of something and be happy, or do you need to excise the whole thing, root and branch, and move on? Does being unhappy that something failed mean that there's still something valuable there, or is unhappiness synonymous with exhaustion?
- As we go through life, does it matter at what age we have big mental paradigm shifts? Is it better to have a crisis of faith when young so you can "course correct" more easily, later so that you don't have to live through as much disappointment, or are quandaries time-invariant? How much depends on the quandary, and how much depends on you as a person?
- When you fall down, how do you find what will pick you up? Is it better to just distract yourself until you feel better and go back to what you were doing, or deliberately start on a different path? What role do other people play?
Mill spent some time depressed, then picked himself back up, rebuilt his entire value system from the ground up, and then went on to become one of the most important philosophers in modern history. That's how it's done, folks! His discovery that happiness is often easier to find when you don't chase it too directly is hardly original, but given that it's a much easier maxim to hear than to actually live, you can hardly hear it repeated too frequently. How many goals have we chased in the idea that when we reach them we will finally be satisfied, only to find out that we needlessly caused ourselves and others unhappiness along the way to an empty and unfulfilling end? How many are we still chasing right now?
A more uplifting human interest point in his life story is his relationship with Harriet Taylor, the woman who would later become his wife. One of the downsides of being raised as a child prodigy apart from your peers by a humorless father who cares mostly about your ability to recite ancient Greek is that it's not great for your sex life. On the flip side, when he met Harriet that repression gave him an admirable devotion to her, sustained platonically at the beginning since she was married at the time and then not-so-platonically after the husband conveniently died and they could then get hitched. It's a good reminder that there's no one right way to go through life, and even if you've got baggage, or what you're doing seems scandalous (there's no evidence that Mill was ever a homewrecker, but really really close friendships with someone else's spouse are red flags in any era), it's possible to come out the other side happy and fulfilled. Not that anyone would recommend his path to happiness, probably least of all Mill himself, but in spite of their irrationality and generally low odds of success, I think "love finds a way" stories will always find an audience, since very few of us ever take the straight line to happiness. I am honestly jealous of his appreciation for his wife as a person and a philosophical companion who complemented him. As he says: "What was abstract and purely scientific was generally mine; the properly human element came from her: in all that concerned the application of philosophy to the exigencies of human society and progress, I was her pupil, alike in boldness of speculation and cautiousness of practical judgment." He doesn't spend too much time outlining his grief at her death after only 7 years of marriage, but he clearly missed her very deeply, both as a companion and as a fellow philosopher.
One thing that separates Mill from the overwhelming majority of philosophers both ancient and modern is that he was actually a member of the House of Commons for a time, and not merely a writer. Like Marx said, "The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it!" It's all well and good to sit down at your desk and construct a paper paradise, but actually rolling up your sleeves and participating in the ugly moral compromises that politics requires is very different, particularly in that pre-Marx era when advocates of socialism were basing much of their reform proposals on models of primitive communism, which were as much of a dangerous distraction in the Industrial Revolution as they are now. Unsurprisingly, his main issues were all related to fairness: universal suffrage, reducing corruption, and instituting proportional representation. He was unhappy that no one liked his proposal that the more educated be given more votes than the less educated, which sounds anti-egalitarian, but compared to the contemporary explicit bias towards property-owners or the modern implicit bias towards rural voters, it sounds downright reasonable. He was critical to the development of British Liberal Party, but was himself reluctant to fully embrace party labels, preferring to be his own man, and when it came down to tough choices, as it did for him when considering Gladstone's Reform Bill, he was a stick-to-your-guns kind of guy even at the potential cost of passage:
"I had always declined being a member of the [Reform] League, on the avowed ground that I did not agree in its programme of manhood suffrage and the ballot: from the ballot I dissented entirely; and I could not consent to hoist the flag of manhood suffrage, even on the assurance that the exclusion of women was not intended to be implied; since if one goes beyond what can be immediately carried and professes to take one’s stand on a principle, one should go the whole length of the principle."
For the most part his views as expressed here only reinforce my idea of Mill as a thinker tirelessly trying to find the most logical way to systematize and thus extend morality. As a member of that unhappy tribe of non-socialist liberals, without the helpful guiding light of a dogma, many of his difficulties with his fellow legislators stemmed from his insistence at trying to universalize moral concepts in a system that encouraged parochialism. For example, during the US Civil War there was a real danger that the UK would support the Confederacy instead of the Union out of crass commercial interests (Karl Marx, then covering the war as a journalist for the New York Herald-Tribune, also correctly argued against this view at length), and for many British legislators, the Civil War really did seem like those "it was about states' rights" myths you still heard about sometimes: "There were men of high principle and unquestionable liberality of opinion who thought it a dispute about tariffs, or assimilated it to the cases in which they were accustomed to sympathise, of a people struggling for independence." His friend David Hume infamously said of logic: "We speak not strictly and philosophically when we talk of the combat of passion and of reason. Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them." You can look at Mill's entire parliamentary career as a struggle to show that moral passion and the highest reasoning faculties are not in fact opposed, although judging by the fact that one of his best and most famous lines is still as relevant today as it was in 1861, his successes are tempered at best: "The Conservative party was, by the law of its constitution, necessarily the stupidest party. Now, I do not retract this assertion; but I did not mean that Conservatives are generally stupid; I meant, that stupid persons are generally Conservative."
The best Mill is his philosophical works, though his accounts of his practical experiences in his career are filled with fascinating little historical asides. For example, I never knew that Mill played such an important role in promoting acceptance of Lord Durham's recommendation for the 1840 unification of French and English Canada, which laid the foundation for modern Canada's creation in 1867 and become the template for the motherland's relationship to the other British colonies. His discussions with famous friends, his disputes with other leading lights, and his recollections of a long and productive life make certain elements of Utilitarianism and On Liberty make a lot more sense; I guess on some level our abstract mental systems of the world can never really be fully divorced from personal experience, and understanding where someone is coming from tells you a lot about where they're trying to go to. An autobiography might be as much mortification as inspiration, like George Orwell's line about how "A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats", but Mill had such an exceptionally eventful life that even with his characteristic modesty and understatement it's truly hard to see how he could have written a better or more useful book. His life was his work, and he did a ton of it.
His account of his childhood is fascinating. His father James Mill decided to raise him as a sort of knowledge-seeking missile, giving him nothing but impossibly ambitious classical homework and barely letting him interact with other children. The contrast between the dry tone of Mill's description of his father's methods and the profoundly ambivalent effects it obviously had on him is striking: Ancient Greek lessons at 3 years old, Latin at 8, rhetoric and history philosophy, all with scholastic discipline and criticism that sounds nearly as bad as the infamous British boarding school punishments of the day, because although his father never beat him, imagine having your father yelling at you because your elocution when orating a speech by Demosthenes at age 12 was not quite up to par. I was a fairly bookish child, so a boyhood of not having to go to school and just reading all day doesn't sound so bad, and yet I doubt that force-feeding you child literature like that is useful. A 10 year-old's interpretation of Thucydides can only ever be so good. This steroidal homeschooling did produce one of the most famous philosophers of all time, but it's not a surprise that although he respected and admired his father, Mill calmly states that he didn't love him. He would later endorse government-funded (though not government-run) mandatory education in On Liberty, so this reluctance to endorse his own schooling method is pretty interesting. One can only wonder if he would approve of the "guided self-direction" of the Montessori method as being a happy medium between the austere Plato's Republic-style force-feeding of his youth and the often-inflexible public school system we have today, or what he thought of Rousseau's system in Emile.
Of course, there's only so much you can learn from your father, even if your father is himself a major philosopher, so it's fortunate that James Mill knew many of the leading philosophic lights of the day. Mill spends many pages talking about how his personal relationships with David Hume, David Ricardo, Jeremy Bentham, etc. as a child and young man influenced his later thinking. James Mill was an autodidact himself, perhaps he wanted to try to hurry up his son's enlightenment by giving him access to people who had already read all those books. In a way that's almost more interesting than his homeschooling background - if you deliberately unleashed your kid on your smartest friends and let ask them as many questions as they wanted and your friends would tolerate, how would that mentorship affect them? Bentham was the main influence, of course, but Mill came into contact with many people who already were or would later go on to be very significant (he himself would become godfather to Bertrand Russell), and Mill is very perceptive about what he took and what he rejected from his mentors. There's an inherent tension between trying to devise an authentic personal philosophy that's true to yourself, on one hand, and on the other to race ahead as fast as possible, to stand on the shoulders of giants by learning from other people as much and as quickly as possible. I think that's where judgment and discernment come in, because ultimately you need the ability to say no to people, to choose what's important from what you take in and discard the rest, and indeed one can take much of Mill's philosophy as instructive guidance on how to choose wisely, not just between ideas but between anything.
And yet we are not mere utilitarian calculating machines, as Mill illustrates with his account of his spiritual crisis at age 20. It's a fascinating account of how he found that he was unable to derive personal happiness purely by the maximize pleasure-minimize pain ethos that underlay his own philosophy. One day in the autumn of 1826, he wasn't feeling so great (it sounds sort of like one of those Sunday afternoons that Douglas Adams so memorably described as the long dark tea-time of the soul), and he started asking himself some tough questions:
"In this frame of mind it occurred to me to put the question directly to myself, 'Suppose that all your objects in life were realized; that all the changes in institutions and opinions which you are looking forward to, could be completely effected at this very instant: would this be a great joy and happiness to you?' And an irrepressible self-consciousness distinctly answered, 'No!' At this my heart sank within me: the whole foundation on which my life was constructed fell down. All my happiness was to have been found in the continual pursuit of this end. The end had ceased to charm, and how could there ever again be any interest in the means? I seemed to have nothing left to live for."
There are a truly remarkable number of thought-provoking questions embedded in that paragraph that he answers explicitly or implicitly in the remainder of the chapter:
- Is it actually possible to find true happiness in abstract thought, in any degree? For anyone, or just some? Even if it was possible for you, would that happiness be sufficient? How do you balance the importance of your own "life of the mind" with the rest of your life?
- How does your own personal temperament affect your philosophy? Is something like utilitarianism more or less likely to be believed by happy people? Does switching (or reaffirming) belief systems really change your happiness in the long run, like feeling more confident in a nicer outfit? Can you think yourself sad?
- How important are our own beliefs about the world to you, not just your answers to "big questions" but even minor tastes and opinions? What would it mean if something you thought you really loved turned out to be empty, or flat wrong, or even actively negative to your ego?
- If you don't find joy in something's ultimate conclusion, can there be anything positive about any aspect of it at all? Can you go through the motions of something and be happy, or do you need to excise the whole thing, root and branch, and move on? Does being unhappy that something failed mean that there's still something valuable there, or is unhappiness synonymous with exhaustion?
- As we go through life, does it matter at what age we have big mental paradigm shifts? Is it better to have a crisis of faith when young so you can "course correct" more easily, later so that you don't have to live through as much disappointment, or are quandaries time-invariant? How much depends on the quandary, and how much depends on you as a person?
- When you fall down, how do you find what will pick you up? Is it better to just distract yourself until you feel better and go back to what you were doing, or deliberately start on a different path? What role do other people play?
Mill spent some time depressed, then picked himself back up, rebuilt his entire value system from the ground up, and then went on to become one of the most important philosophers in modern history. That's how it's done, folks! His discovery that happiness is often easier to find when you don't chase it too directly is hardly original, but given that it's a much easier maxim to hear than to actually live, you can hardly hear it repeated too frequently. How many goals have we chased in the idea that when we reach them we will finally be satisfied, only to find out that we needlessly caused ourselves and others unhappiness along the way to an empty and unfulfilling end? How many are we still chasing right now?
A more uplifting human interest point in his life story is his relationship with Harriet Taylor, the woman who would later become his wife. One of the downsides of being raised as a child prodigy apart from your peers by a humorless father who cares mostly about your ability to recite ancient Greek is that it's not great for your sex life. On the flip side, when he met Harriet that repression gave him an admirable devotion to her, sustained platonically at the beginning since she was married at the time and then not-so-platonically after the husband conveniently died and they could then get hitched. It's a good reminder that there's no one right way to go through life, and even if you've got baggage, or what you're doing seems scandalous (there's no evidence that Mill was ever a homewrecker, but really really close friendships with someone else's spouse are red flags in any era), it's possible to come out the other side happy and fulfilled. Not that anyone would recommend his path to happiness, probably least of all Mill himself, but in spite of their irrationality and generally low odds of success, I think "love finds a way" stories will always find an audience, since very few of us ever take the straight line to happiness. I am honestly jealous of his appreciation for his wife as a person and a philosophical companion who complemented him. As he says: "What was abstract and purely scientific was generally mine; the properly human element came from her: in all that concerned the application of philosophy to the exigencies of human society and progress, I was her pupil, alike in boldness of speculation and cautiousness of practical judgment." He doesn't spend too much time outlining his grief at her death after only 7 years of marriage, but he clearly missed her very deeply, both as a companion and as a fellow philosopher.
One thing that separates Mill from the overwhelming majority of philosophers both ancient and modern is that he was actually a member of the House of Commons for a time, and not merely a writer. Like Marx said, "The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it!" It's all well and good to sit down at your desk and construct a paper paradise, but actually rolling up your sleeves and participating in the ugly moral compromises that politics requires is very different, particularly in that pre-Marx era when advocates of socialism were basing much of their reform proposals on models of primitive communism, which were as much of a dangerous distraction in the Industrial Revolution as they are now. Unsurprisingly, his main issues were all related to fairness: universal suffrage, reducing corruption, and instituting proportional representation. He was unhappy that no one liked his proposal that the more educated be given more votes than the less educated, which sounds anti-egalitarian, but compared to the contemporary explicit bias towards property-owners or the modern implicit bias towards rural voters, it sounds downright reasonable. He was critical to the development of British Liberal Party, but was himself reluctant to fully embrace party labels, preferring to be his own man, and when it came down to tough choices, as it did for him when considering Gladstone's Reform Bill, he was a stick-to-your-guns kind of guy even at the potential cost of passage:
"I had always declined being a member of the [Reform] League, on the avowed ground that I did not agree in its programme of manhood suffrage and the ballot: from the ballot I dissented entirely; and I could not consent to hoist the flag of manhood suffrage, even on the assurance that the exclusion of women was not intended to be implied; since if one goes beyond what can be immediately carried and professes to take one’s stand on a principle, one should go the whole length of the principle."
For the most part his views as expressed here only reinforce my idea of Mill as a thinker tirelessly trying to find the most logical way to systematize and thus extend morality. As a member of that unhappy tribe of non-socialist liberals, without the helpful guiding light of a dogma, many of his difficulties with his fellow legislators stemmed from his insistence at trying to universalize moral concepts in a system that encouraged parochialism. For example, during the US Civil War there was a real danger that the UK would support the Confederacy instead of the Union out of crass commercial interests (Karl Marx, then covering the war as a journalist for the New York Herald-Tribune, also correctly argued against this view at length), and for many British legislators, the Civil War really did seem like those "it was about states' rights" myths you still heard about sometimes: "There were men of high principle and unquestionable liberality of opinion who thought it a dispute about tariffs, or assimilated it to the cases in which they were accustomed to sympathise, of a people struggling for independence." His friend David Hume infamously said of logic: "We speak not strictly and philosophically when we talk of the combat of passion and of reason. Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them." You can look at Mill's entire parliamentary career as a struggle to show that moral passion and the highest reasoning faculties are not in fact opposed, although judging by the fact that one of his best and most famous lines is still as relevant today as it was in 1861, his successes are tempered at best: "The Conservative party was, by the law of its constitution, necessarily the stupidest party. Now, I do not retract this assertion; but I did not mean that Conservatives are generally stupid; I meant, that stupid persons are generally Conservative."
The best Mill is his philosophical works, though his accounts of his practical experiences in his career are filled with fascinating little historical asides. For example, I never knew that Mill played such an important role in promoting acceptance of Lord Durham's recommendation for the 1840 unification of French and English Canada, which laid the foundation for modern Canada's creation in 1867 and become the template for the motherland's relationship to the other British colonies. His discussions with famous friends, his disputes with other leading lights, and his recollections of a long and productive life make certain elements of Utilitarianism and On Liberty make a lot more sense; I guess on some level our abstract mental systems of the world can never really be fully divorced from personal experience, and understanding where someone is coming from tells you a lot about where they're trying to go to. An autobiography might be as much mortification as inspiration, like George Orwell's line about how "A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats", but Mill had such an exceptionally eventful life that even with his characteristic modesty and understatement it's truly hard to see how he could have written a better or more useful book. His life was his work, and he did a ton of it.
May 19, 2018
An enjoyable, fairly short read about the education of the most important English-speaking philosopher of the 19th century. Tells the story of how under his father's direction he began learning Greek at age 3, Latin at 8, was responsible for the education of his 8 siblings, and had consumed most of the classical canon by 12. He begins productive work as a philosopher and political economist, then this education runs up against a mental breakdown and loss of purpose in his early 20s, finally resolving as he opens himself up to poetry and the world of emotions. It's the synthesis of these forces that makes him the unique philosopher he ends up becoming.
Mill seems above all a man of integrity, thoughtfulness, and deep intellectual honesty. His intellectual partnership with his friend and later wife, Harriet Taylor, who he talks about as almost a co-author on much of his work, is quite remarkable. He was a leading voice for women's suffrage and all types of individual freedoms.
If I could do it again, I would probably read Mill's On Liberty and some background on his philosophy and influence, and perhaps a bit about Bentham, before taking this book on. As it was, it's an interesting character study. I lost interest for a while in the middle and nearly dropped it, but I was glad I hung on as the story of his marriage and time in Parliament came towards the end.
Mill seems above all a man of integrity, thoughtfulness, and deep intellectual honesty. His intellectual partnership with his friend and later wife, Harriet Taylor, who he talks about as almost a co-author on much of his work, is quite remarkable. He was a leading voice for women's suffrage and all types of individual freedoms.
If I could do it again, I would probably read Mill's On Liberty and some background on his philosophy and influence, and perhaps a bit about Bentham, before taking this book on. As it was, it's an interesting character study. I lost interest for a while in the middle and nearly dropped it, but I was glad I hung on as the story of his marriage and time in Parliament came towards the end.
November 15, 2013
It is good to know there is someone out there in the world with even less originality when it comes to titles than I have. Of course, it probably was the style of the time.
I'm encouraged anyway.
I liked Autobiography. Mill's writing is tight and well-written. His life is interesting and he does a good job examining the sources (books and people) that shaped his life. It does get a tad long when reading about said sources at 1 am, but otherwise I found it enjoyable and interesting. His enthusiasm for his wife is very apparent. I expected more about her.
It is interesting that he does not despair of his upbringing. Though he points out a few things that might have been better (like not having him teach his sisters Latin) he nevertheless notes to some degree the large success of it. He considers his abilities average. Perhaps posterity has cast his father in the role of villain unduly.
Mill is encouraging because he affirms human desire for inner fulfillment. He found it in "culture" - poetry, art, music. As society strives to be more scientific, mathematics, reasoned...this book is a reminder that a life devoid of inward emotional cultivation will eventually burn out before its time.
I'm encouraged anyway.
I liked Autobiography. Mill's writing is tight and well-written. His life is interesting and he does a good job examining the sources (books and people) that shaped his life. It does get a tad long when reading about said sources at 1 am, but otherwise I found it enjoyable and interesting. His enthusiasm for his wife is very apparent. I expected more about her.
It is interesting that he does not despair of his upbringing. Though he points out a few things that might have been better (like not having him teach his sisters Latin) he nevertheless notes to some degree the large success of it. He considers his abilities average. Perhaps posterity has cast his father in the role of villain unduly.
Mill is encouraging because he affirms human desire for inner fulfillment. He found it in "culture" - poetry, art, music. As society strives to be more scientific, mathematics, reasoned...this book is a reminder that a life devoid of inward emotional cultivation will eventually burn out before its time.
March 19, 2017
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October 19, 2020
A fine study of modern philosophies as ways of being. Mill uses his life to promote a romantic twist to enlightenment rationalism.
February 7, 2020
John Stuart Mill was a remarkable man. He was schooled and/or versed in economics, politics, law, philosophy, logic, mathemathics, and sociology. The man clearly was a genius. This is not strange, since, as he himself claims, he was a man of average intellect receiving an extraordinary education by his father. Mill was taught Greek when he was three years old, Latin when he was eight. As a child he was trained in Greek and Roman poetry and philosophy. And gradually he was educated more and more in philosophy, logic, political economics and law. In short, when he was about twenty years old, and about to go on a one year stay in France, he was a trained genius.
This of course, comes with costs. His father was incapable of showing any tenderness, and was as rigid as a Spartan commander. It is not to be wondered that Mill was extraordinary happy when he met the love of his life, and that he suffered from severe bouts of depression throughout all his life. These subjects are of personal interest to someone who is interested in Mill's thought. Throughout the book, you can trace his intellectual development.
Basically Mill can be defined as replacing all traditional law and morality with an emphasis on human well-being - happiness as a principle to conduct life and to formulate laws. He also was a staunch supporter of the French Revolution, at least its humanitarian ideals of equality, fraternity and liberty. For Mill, human beings are intrinsically worthy of respect, and equally demaning of personal autonomy. I think the French Revolution is a very good overarching theme to connect all of Mill's later treatises and essays.
Academics sometimes find Mill's essays to be incompatible. For example, in On Liberty (19859) he promotes a radical freedom of the individual - only limited by the principle of direct harm to others. Yet, in Utilitarianism (1861) he seems to promote a more democratically styled Aristotelean virtue ethics. People should be educated to care for higher pleasures, in order to promote the biggest amount of happiness for the biggest amount of people. This means, in effect, that people are rather less free than his earlier stance in On Liberty. But I think this superficial contradiction can be cleared away by acknowledging Mill's conception of freedom as 'informed and responsible freedom'. The person is free to do what he or she wants, as long as no one is directly hurt, yet this doesn't mean public opinion is forbidden. Freedom comes with a cost, and a huge responsibility - rather in line with Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialist ideals.
Also, Mill wrote - during the same years - on the importance of representative government (with education as a check on the psychology of the mob) and on the necessity of equalizing women in all respects. In all these essays, Mill is promoting individual freedom and utilitarianism.
I love Mill's clear, concise and witty style of writing. I like his ideas and theories very much. His ethics and his political stance are both very laudable, and I try to adopt some of his principles in my personal life. Yet, this Autobiography is rather disappointment. Mostly its a 200 pages story of when he read what books, at what year he met what person, and basically a dry summing up of all his ideas. Next to Bertrand Russell, John Stuart Mill is my favorite thinker and philosopher, yet I find this book a huge disappointment. I guess you can just read the Wikipedia page on Mill and collect the same information.
This of course, comes with costs. His father was incapable of showing any tenderness, and was as rigid as a Spartan commander. It is not to be wondered that Mill was extraordinary happy when he met the love of his life, and that he suffered from severe bouts of depression throughout all his life. These subjects are of personal interest to someone who is interested in Mill's thought. Throughout the book, you can trace his intellectual development.
Basically Mill can be defined as replacing all traditional law and morality with an emphasis on human well-being - happiness as a principle to conduct life and to formulate laws. He also was a staunch supporter of the French Revolution, at least its humanitarian ideals of equality, fraternity and liberty. For Mill, human beings are intrinsically worthy of respect, and equally demaning of personal autonomy. I think the French Revolution is a very good overarching theme to connect all of Mill's later treatises and essays.
Academics sometimes find Mill's essays to be incompatible. For example, in On Liberty (19859) he promotes a radical freedom of the individual - only limited by the principle of direct harm to others. Yet, in Utilitarianism (1861) he seems to promote a more democratically styled Aristotelean virtue ethics. People should be educated to care for higher pleasures, in order to promote the biggest amount of happiness for the biggest amount of people. This means, in effect, that people are rather less free than his earlier stance in On Liberty. But I think this superficial contradiction can be cleared away by acknowledging Mill's conception of freedom as 'informed and responsible freedom'. The person is free to do what he or she wants, as long as no one is directly hurt, yet this doesn't mean public opinion is forbidden. Freedom comes with a cost, and a huge responsibility - rather in line with Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialist ideals.
Also, Mill wrote - during the same years - on the importance of representative government (with education as a check on the psychology of the mob) and on the necessity of equalizing women in all respects. In all these essays, Mill is promoting individual freedom and utilitarianism.
I love Mill's clear, concise and witty style of writing. I like his ideas and theories very much. His ethics and his political stance are both very laudable, and I try to adopt some of his principles in my personal life. Yet, this Autobiography is rather disappointment. Mostly its a 200 pages story of when he read what books, at what year he met what person, and basically a dry summing up of all his ideas. Next to Bertrand Russell, John Stuart Mill is my favorite thinker and philosopher, yet I find this book a huge disappointment. I guess you can just read the Wikipedia page on Mill and collect the same information.
April 23, 2013
Reading John Stuart Mill's life is like reading a book of fantasy. This man was to a very large extent a product of an experiment of his father - a child genius, a troubled man. I like this book for the same reason that I liked Justin Martyr's First Apology. The man seems so completely honest with himself and everything else that one feels very secure reading what he has to say. Mostly due to his strange upbringing and undoubtedly also due to his own sin, he is often wrong, but never boring and never dishonest. The autobiography portraits a true seeker of truth. And a seeker of truth that starts from a very different starting point as anyone else I know, or even anyone who has ever lived. He starts his search being crammed up on books with worldly wisdom and having very little knowledge of relationships and of God. It is a great shame that his friend John Sterling who could have and did teach him a lot about relationships and God died so early. To me the most touching moments in this book are the ones in which he describes how he found meaning in life through new friendships such as that of John Sterling and F.D. Maurice and from the Nature and from music. It is these moments that one feels light shining into the darkened soul of this troubled man and also to the darkened soul of myself.
December 1, 2013
Somehow simultaneously dry and fascinating...
April 17, 2022
An examining life partly examined
November 10, 2020
مقتطفات من حياة فيلسوف الحرية العظيم جون ستيوارت ميل بقلمه
حياة ميل عامرة بالجدية والعلم لدرجة لا تصدق اعجبني ان اصدقاء والده من اعظم علماء عصره ديفيد ريكاردو من اهم خمسة علماء في الاقتصاد على مر التاريخ وبنثام الفيلسوف الكبير وهيوم ولم يكونوا مجرد اصدقاء لوالده بل كان يتعلم عندهم انفراديا في مراهقته وطفولته بالاضافة الى ان والده من اهم المؤرخين والعلماء وقد شرع في تعلم اليونانية من سن الثالثة والاغريقية في الثامنة واصبح يكتب المقالات ويحررها في سن الثانية عشر فعلا حياة عامرة بالجدية والتعلم
ورغم هذا الكم الهائل من العلم الا انه خرج بنظرة جديدة في السياسة والاقتصاد والفلسفة واصبح من اشهر الفلاسفة في التاريخ ولم يكن اسيرا لما تعلمه بل ابدع وخرج بالجديد
حياة ميل عامرة بالجدية والعلم لدرجة لا تصدق اعجبني ان اصدقاء والده من اعظم علماء عصره ديفيد ريكاردو من اهم خمسة علماء في الاقتصاد على مر التاريخ وبنثام الفيلسوف الكبير وهيوم ولم يكونوا مجرد اصدقاء لوالده بل كان يتعلم عندهم انفراديا في مراهقته وطفولته بالاضافة الى ان والده من اهم المؤرخين والعلماء وقد شرع في تعلم اليونانية من سن الثالثة والاغريقية في الثامنة واصبح يكتب المقالات ويحررها في سن الثانية عشر فعلا حياة عامرة بالجدية والتعلم
ورغم هذا الكم الهائل من العلم الا انه خرج بنظرة جديدة في السياسة والاقتصاد والفلسفة واصبح من اشهر الفلاسفة في التاريخ ولم يكن اسيرا لما تعلمه بل ابدع وخرج بالجديد
July 31, 2010
Reading this book has solidified my admiration for John Stuart Mill. Someone needs to make a movie about his life.
July 8, 2010
Now we have a blueprint for manufacturing geniuses, so we may as well run an experiment with a control group to see if anybody can be turned into one. GO!
September 26, 2024
* Weber's Oberon plays in the background *
HIGHLY recommended for people in their 20s, who feel "left stranded at the commencement of my voyage, with a well-equipped ship and a rudder, but no sail." You are fully encouraged to read these as well (credits to John himself): Coleridge's Dejection, Carlyle's "The Everlasting Yea" and Wordsworth's The Excursion.
"The habit of analysis has a tendency to wear away the feelings" (read Carlyle's theory for further illustration).
On the effects music had in him: "exciting enthusiasm; winding up to a high pitch those feelings of an elevated mind which are already in the character, but to which this excitement gives a glow and a fervor, which, though transitory at its utmost height, is precious for sustaining them at other times."
I will reread your insightful, eye-opening thoughts soon enough, but for the time being: thanks for opening up and becoming the medicine for the reader's state of mind, dear John xx
HIGHLY recommended for people in their 20s, who feel "left stranded at the commencement of my voyage, with a well-equipped ship and a rudder, but no sail." You are fully encouraged to read these as well (credits to John himself): Coleridge's Dejection, Carlyle's "The Everlasting Yea" and Wordsworth's The Excursion.
"The habit of analysis has a tendency to wear away the feelings" (read Carlyle's theory for further illustration).
On the effects music had in him: "exciting enthusiasm; winding up to a high pitch those feelings of an elevated mind which are already in the character, but to which this excitement gives a glow and a fervor, which, though transitory at its utmost height, is precious for sustaining them at other times."
I will reread your insightful, eye-opening thoughts soon enough, but for the time being: thanks for opening up and becoming the medicine for the reader's state of mind, dear John xx
March 12, 2019
OMG! If you want to read John Stuart Mill, read On Liberty, not this book! I knew he had a very unusual life, like learning Greek and math at the age of 3, so I thought his autobiography would be interesting. Actually I guess it takes real talent to make such an interesting life so boring....
August 5, 2020
"Οι αλλαγές που λαμβάνουν χώρα στη σύγχρονη κοινωνία τείνουν να αναδεικνύουν ολοένα και περισσότερο: τη σημασία, για τον άνθρωπο και την κοινωνία, μιας μεγάλης ποικιλίας στους τύπους των χαρακτήρων και της απόδοσης πλήρους ελευθερίας στην ανθρώπινη φύση για να επεκταθεί προς αναρίθμητες και διαφορετικές κατευθύνσεις."
December 3, 2019
ظننت أنها ربما سيرة ذاتية لوالد ميل وليس له هو شخصيًا، من المثير للإهتمام مقدار التأثير الذي يُحدِثه والِدَي المرء في نفسه.
قراءة ممتعة عن بعض ما وراء الفيلسوف والإقتصادي جون ستيوارت ميل.
قراءة ممتعة عن بعض ما وراء الفيلسوف والإقتصادي جون ستيوارت ميل.
August 7, 2021
John Stuart Mill was one of the foremost thinkers on liberty and women’s rights in the 19th century. It was interesting to read about his unusual education. He was homeschooled and only read Greek and Arithmetic in his early years. His reading routine and the amount he read at such a young age was fascinating. The second part of the book is his tribute to his wife and daughter. They played a major role in his success, not only in evolving his ideas but also in writing major parts of his books. It was a short and for most parts, an enjoyable read.
About learning Greek:
Committing to memory lists of common Greek words with meaning in English. Grammar was only learnt some years later, mostly by reading Greek books.
About happiness/ depression:
The secret to being happy is to not think about happiness but to have an external purpose of life. Mill went through a lull/ depressive period for a short time in his twenties but recovered by appreciating the smaller things in life like the Poetry of William Wordsworth.
The answer, he discovered through reading Wordsworth, is to take refuge in a capacity to be moved by beauty — a capacity to take joy in the quiet contemplation of delicate thoughts, sights, sounds, and feelings, not just titanic struggles.
About learning Greek:
Committing to memory lists of common Greek words with meaning in English. Grammar was only learnt some years later, mostly by reading Greek books.
About happiness/ depression:
The secret to being happy is to not think about happiness but to have an external purpose of life. Mill went through a lull/ depressive period for a short time in his twenties but recovered by appreciating the smaller things in life like the Poetry of William Wordsworth.
The answer, he discovered through reading Wordsworth, is to take refuge in a capacity to be moved by beauty — a capacity to take joy in the quiet contemplation of delicate thoughts, sights, sounds, and feelings, not just titanic struggles.
March 16, 2018
This account, John Stuart Mill's Autobiography, made a strong impression on me, though at some times stronger than others insofar as at times it is about parliamentary matters of over a century ago, and I'd certainly recommend the first chapters, about his education as a child prodigy, and the fifth chapter, which is about his mental breakdown, to all readers; it was, however, sometimes difficult to read, though not more so than other books of this esteemed era, so I found it very pleasurable, though still quite thought provoking, to listen to it on audio, a performance given by Noah Waterman, who did a great job, or at least not a bad one, and who cannot be faulted in any way, at least not by a reasonable audience, for his reading of the long, though not impossible to follow, sentences that make up this work.
July 25, 2010
I thought that this book would be more interesting and insightful than it actually was. Amidst a boring recounting of various details of his life, there were three aspects of this book that I found interesting: (i) Mill's childhood education was extremely rigorous, time-consuming, and broad; (ii) Mill's depression midway through his life is a well articulated portrait of clinical depression; (iii) Various strategies that Mill employed in doing his work. For example, every time he would write something, he would do a first draft, almost completely scrap it, and then write the second draft over. He would then be nearly finished with the project.
May 28, 2016
الكتاب مهم من الناحية الفكرية و التاريخية ،حيث يعرض الكاتب سيرة تطوره الفكرية و أهم الأشخاص الذين أثروا في حياته بدءًا من والده و بنثام و غيرهم من المفكرين و السياسيين ،مما يكشف جزءًا هامًا من الحياة السياسية و الفكرية للمجتمع الانجليزي في بدايات القرن التاسع عشر ، أعجبني إشادته بدور زوجته و ابنتها في حياتها و حزنه الشديد بعد وفاة زوجته كما أثار اهتمامي طريقة نشأته الأولى في الصغر و اكتسابه مهارات النقد و التفكير المنطقي في سن صغير جدًا مقارنة بالعصر الحالي .
الكتاب يعيبه الملل في بعض الأجزاء لكنه في المجمل مفيد و ممتع إلى حدٍ ما .
الكتاب يعيبه الملل في بعض الأجزاء لكنه في المجمل مفيد و ممتع إلى حدٍ ما .
October 8, 2017
جيد جداً الكتاب
مِل شخص عملي
وسيرته الذاتية عبارة عن عرض للحياة الاقتصادية والسياسية والفكرية للمجتمع في الفترة اللي عاشها
تحدث عن تأثير والده الكبير وتحفيزة له للتعلم والدراسة وايضاً بنثام والمدرسة النفعية
وعرض تأثير الصحافة الحرة على تغيير وتوعية الرأي العام بالحقوق والنفقات الحكومية وترشيدها
تحدث عن اممانية الاصلاح عبر خلق الوعي عند الشعب وبالتالي الضغط على الحكومة
شيء جميل جداً ومحفز، في الوقت الحالي الانترنت عنده امكانيات الصحافة الحرة
ومرة في كلام مع وحدة من بتوع " أهم شي الأمن والأمان " قلتلها على الأقل خلي عندك فكرة ووعي بالصح والخطأ ولا تغيري مسار تفكيرك بسبب الخوف !
مِل شخص عملي
وسيرته الذاتية عبارة عن عرض للحياة الاقتصادية والسياسية والفكرية للمجتمع في الفترة اللي عاشها
تحدث عن تأثير والده الكبير وتحفيزة له للتعلم والدراسة وايضاً بنثام والمدرسة النفعية
وعرض تأثير الصحافة الحرة على تغيير وتوعية الرأي العام بالحقوق والنفقات الحكومية وترشيدها
تحدث عن اممانية الاصلاح عبر خلق الوعي عند الشعب وبالتالي الضغط على الحكومة
شيء جميل جداً ومحفز، في الوقت الحالي الانترنت عنده امكانيات الصحافة الحرة
ومرة في كلام مع وحدة من بتوع " أهم شي الأمن والأمان " قلتلها على الأقل خلي عندك فكرة ووعي بالصح والخطأ ولا تغيري مسار تفكيرك بسبب الخوف !
December 20, 2024
Final Review:
I struggle a lot with thinking about how to remain open to new ideas without losing conviction; this is a great book on that. This is also a great book about how ideas form and evolve, what it means to change one's mind, and the importance of collaboration and community.
His style is so straightforward, and he takes real pains to point out when and where he was helped or does not deserve credit that he could easily take. Even so you can't help but be impressed by how much he got done and how much he got right. His vehement support for democratic institutions, woman's suffrage, and humane government was clearly ahead of its time.
Halfway through review: What an extraordinary life. Its amazing how many first rate thinkers he hung out with as like a 12 year old.
One of those rare great philosophers/economists who is really astute about people (including himself) as opposed to just ideas. This man also LOVES his wife (and considers her his moral and intellectual equal, if not superior, which is epic for the early 19th century).
This is what I'm talking about: "The same exactness and rapidity of operation, pervading as it did her sensitive as well as her mental faculties, would, with her gifts of feeling and imagination, have fitted her to be a consummate artist, as her fiery and tender soul and her vigorous eloquence would certainly have made her a great orator, and her profound knowledge of human nature and discernment and sagacity in practical life, would, in the times when such a career was open to women, have made her eminent among the rulers of mankind. [...] [I was married] in April, 1851, to the lady whose incomparable worth had made her friendship the greatest source to me both of happiness and of improvement, during many years in which we never expected to be in any closer relation to one another. Ardently as I should have aspired to this complete union of our lives at any time in the course of my existence at which it had been practicable, I, as much as my wife, would far rather have foregone that privilege for ever, than have owed it to the premature death of [her husband] for whom I had the sincerest respect, and she the strongest affection. That event, however, having taken place in July, 1849, it was granted to me to derive from that evil my own greatest good, by adding to the partnership of thought, feeling, and writing which had long existed, a partnership of our entire existence. For seven and a-half years that blessing was mine; for seven and a-half only! I can say nothing which could describe, even in the faintest manner, what that loss was and is. But because I know that she would have wished it, I endeavour to make the best of what life I have left, and to work on for her purposes with such diminished strength as can be derived from thoughts of her, and communion with her memory."
I struggle a lot with thinking about how to remain open to new ideas without losing conviction; this is a great book on that. This is also a great book about how ideas form and evolve, what it means to change one's mind, and the importance of collaboration and community.
His style is so straightforward, and he takes real pains to point out when and where he was helped or does not deserve credit that he could easily take. Even so you can't help but be impressed by how much he got done and how much he got right. His vehement support for democratic institutions, woman's suffrage, and humane government was clearly ahead of its time.
Halfway through review: What an extraordinary life. Its amazing how many first rate thinkers he hung out with as like a 12 year old.
One of those rare great philosophers/economists who is really astute about people (including himself) as opposed to just ideas. This man also LOVES his wife (and considers her his moral and intellectual equal, if not superior, which is epic for the early 19th century).
This is what I'm talking about: "The same exactness and rapidity of operation, pervading as it did her sensitive as well as her mental faculties, would, with her gifts of feeling and imagination, have fitted her to be a consummate artist, as her fiery and tender soul and her vigorous eloquence would certainly have made her a great orator, and her profound knowledge of human nature and discernment and sagacity in practical life, would, in the times when such a career was open to women, have made her eminent among the rulers of mankind. [...] [I was married] in April, 1851, to the lady whose incomparable worth had made her friendship the greatest source to me both of happiness and of improvement, during many years in which we never expected to be in any closer relation to one another. Ardently as I should have aspired to this complete union of our lives at any time in the course of my existence at which it had been practicable, I, as much as my wife, would far rather have foregone that privilege for ever, than have owed it to the premature death of [her husband] for whom I had the sincerest respect, and she the strongest affection. That event, however, having taken place in July, 1849, it was granted to me to derive from that evil my own greatest good, by adding to the partnership of thought, feeling, and writing which had long existed, a partnership of our entire existence. For seven and a-half years that blessing was mine; for seven and a-half only! I can say nothing which could describe, even in the faintest manner, what that loss was and is. But because I know that she would have wished it, I endeavour to make the best of what life I have left, and to work on for her purposes with such diminished strength as can be derived from thoughts of her, and communion with her memory."
June 29, 2022
This is John Stuart Mill's own account of his life focusing on his education and intellectual developments. There is a minimal amount of digression into his personal life, chiefly his relationship with his father and his wife Harriot Taylor Mill. There are brief mentions of some of his associates who had parliamentary careers such as John Arthur Roebuck including Mill's sympathy with Lord Durham. Mill's own parliamentary career is also discussed in some detail but focusing almost exclusively on what Mill himself did. There is some detail on the editorial history of first the Westminster Review then the London Review which became the London & Westminster Review. Mill's career at the India office of the West India company is touched on only briefly.
The writing is compared to Mill's other work relatively light and brief and philosophical, economic and political subjects are not usually entered into in detail. However some sense of Mill's thoughts on subject such as free will and necessity and the question of political liberty are interestingly summarized. Also some insight into Mill's intellectual process and sources is recorded. I suspect it would be an interesting introduction to Mill's thought for the uninitiated.
This edition includes six speeches of Mill's previously unpublished 5 of which are from the 1820s. These give a sense of the continuity of Mill's intellectual interests and commitments, the focus on the development of character as a key aspect of education, the importance of free thought and discussion in arriving at progressive intellectual opinion are clear in these early writings and echoed and elaborated on in later more famous and thorough works.
There is a short introduction by Harold J. Laski given the impressions of an early 20th century intellectual on Mill. It gives some context and an interesting sympathetic evaluation of the work.
There is an index at the end, one boon of this is that it allows you to look up people named and often get their full name and dates. This adds some useful context, often Mill seems to assume we will know his circle without much introduction. Likewise some of his technical terms or names for historical events (the Canadian coercion bill of 1837) are obscure.
The writing is compared to Mill's other work relatively light and brief and philosophical, economic and political subjects are not usually entered into in detail. However some sense of Mill's thoughts on subject such as free will and necessity and the question of political liberty are interestingly summarized. Also some insight into Mill's intellectual process and sources is recorded. I suspect it would be an interesting introduction to Mill's thought for the uninitiated.
This edition includes six speeches of Mill's previously unpublished 5 of which are from the 1820s. These give a sense of the continuity of Mill's intellectual interests and commitments, the focus on the development of character as a key aspect of education, the importance of free thought and discussion in arriving at progressive intellectual opinion are clear in these early writings and echoed and elaborated on in later more famous and thorough works.
There is a short introduction by Harold J. Laski given the impressions of an early 20th century intellectual on Mill. It gives some context and an interesting sympathetic evaluation of the work.
There is an index at the end, one boon of this is that it allows you to look up people named and often get their full name and dates. This adds some useful context, often Mill seems to assume we will know his circle without much introduction. Likewise some of his technical terms or names for historical events (the Canadian coercion bill of 1837) are obscure.
October 10, 2023
Geçtiğimiz aylarda Kadınların Köleleştirilmesi’ni okumuştum ve Mill’in hayatını merak etmiştim. Çünkü o devirde kadın erkek eşitsizliğine bir erkek olarak değinmek ataerkil sistemin ona sağladığı avantajları da zan altında bırakmak demek.
Mill, sakin bir hayat geçirdiğini söyleyerek eğitim hayatının ona çok büyük bir katkı sağladığını ve bunu dile getirmek istediğini belirtiyor. Ona kesinlikle katılıyorum. Eğitiminde babasının onu aileden olmayan çocuklardan uzun süre uzak tutmuş olmasının ve çok küçük yaştan itibaren muhakeme yeteneğini ortaya çıkaran bir eğitim almış olmasının son derece önemli olduğunu düşünüyorum.
Diğer çocuklardan uzak kalması bence toksik erkekliğin belli özelliklerinin zorbalık yoluyla içine işlemesinin önüne geçmiş ve bir şeyleri başarabileceği inancını diri tutmuş diye düşündüm.
Aldığı muhakemeye dayalı eğitimin de ona sadece bir şeyleri öğrenmesini ve bunun üzerine tartaşabilmesini sağlamanın dışında yapılanların üzerine ekleyerek katkıda bulunma cesareti de verdiğini düşünüyorum. Tabi hem kendisinde hem de babasında dünya için iyi bir şeyler yapma prensibi olmasaydı bunca eğitim kişisel hırslar ve güç kazanmak için de kullanılabilirdi.
Bunlar dışında aldığı eğitimin yoğunluğu onu genç yaşta tüketmiş de. Bunun yaşamasını zaten okumaya başladığımda bekliyordum. Hayatını anlatırken hem babasının ona kazandırdığı hem de eksik kaldığı yanları anlatmış. Bence bu anlamda oldukça tutarlı. Kendisinin yaptığı şeyleri başarmış olması tesadüf değil. Arkasında onca emek var. Eşinin hayatındaki yeri ve önemine değinmesi de çok kıymetliydi. Resmen babasına ve eşine duyduğu sevgiyi kelimelerinden hissettim. Sadece hem babası hem de kendisi birer bilgin olmaktansa çok daha atılgan olabilirlermiş. Yine de bunları okuduğuma memnunum. Bazı şeylerin tesadüf olmadığının da altı çizilmiş oldu.
Mill, sakin bir hayat geçirdiğini söyleyerek eğitim hayatının ona çok büyük bir katkı sağladığını ve bunu dile getirmek istediğini belirtiyor. Ona kesinlikle katılıyorum. Eğitiminde babasının onu aileden olmayan çocuklardan uzun süre uzak tutmuş olmasının ve çok küçük yaştan itibaren muhakeme yeteneğini ortaya çıkaran bir eğitim almış olmasının son derece önemli olduğunu düşünüyorum.
Diğer çocuklardan uzak kalması bence toksik erkekliğin belli özelliklerinin zorbalık yoluyla içine işlemesinin önüne geçmiş ve bir şeyleri başarabileceği inancını diri tutmuş diye düşündüm.
Aldığı muhakemeye dayalı eğitimin de ona sadece bir şeyleri öğrenmesini ve bunun üzerine tartaşabilmesini sağlamanın dışında yapılanların üzerine ekleyerek katkıda bulunma cesareti de verdiğini düşünüyorum. Tabi hem kendisinde hem de babasında dünya için iyi bir şeyler yapma prensibi olmasaydı bunca eğitim kişisel hırslar ve güç kazanmak için de kullanılabilirdi.
Bunlar dışında aldığı eğitimin yoğunluğu onu genç yaşta tüketmiş de. Bunun yaşamasını zaten okumaya başladığımda bekliyordum. Hayatını anlatırken hem babasının ona kazandırdığı hem de eksik kaldığı yanları anlatmış. Bence bu anlamda oldukça tutarlı. Kendisinin yaptığı şeyleri başarmış olması tesadüf değil. Arkasında onca emek var. Eşinin hayatındaki yeri ve önemine değinmesi de çok kıymetliydi. Resmen babasına ve eşine duyduğu sevgiyi kelimelerinden hissettim. Sadece hem babası hem de kendisi birer bilgin olmaktansa çok daha atılgan olabilirlermiş. Yine de bunları okuduğuma memnunum. Bazı şeylerin tesadüf olmadığının da altı çizilmiş oldu.
February 9, 2024
Mill’s greatest contribution in this book is sharing how he came to think independently on a variety of topics. Not just by reading exceptional works by people before him, but also examining them, finding deficiencies in their ideas and putting forth his own. Prolific is an insufficient word for the volume of writing he produced. And given the reach and influence of his ideas, his humility is astounding.
My biggest takeaway from this book is don’t just read immensely, but dissect, question, analyse and rewrite what you read. Also, if you need reading recommendations, Mill has got you covered for a few years here.
My biggest takeaway from this book is don’t just read immensely, but dissect, question, analyse and rewrite what you read. Also, if you need reading recommendations, Mill has got you covered for a few years here.
July 18, 2018
I found this book interesting for two reasons: the account of his extraordinary early education and the story of his "dark night of the soul" in early adulthood.
What Mill himself seems to find interesting -- his relationships with other philosophers of political economy and the Scottish enlightenment, his role in politics and his frequent occupations editing some literary review or other -- strike me as slow going. What I find fascinating, however, are all the elements absent from his book: any mention whatsoever of his mother, hardly any description of an emotion that does not in some way relate to his intellectual endeavors, or even an account of his highly unorthodox relationship with his eventual wife.
What Mill himself seems to find interesting -- his relationships with other philosophers of political economy and the Scottish enlightenment, his role in politics and his frequent occupations editing some literary review or other -- strike me as slow going. What I find fascinating, however, are all the elements absent from his book: any mention whatsoever of his mother, hardly any description of an emotion that does not in some way relate to his intellectual endeavors, or even an account of his highly unorthodox relationship with his eventual wife.
May 12, 2020
Mill prefaces the book by saying that the majority of his life would be quite boring to hear about, and the only reason he's written an autobiography is to make a record of the unusual education he had. indeed, that is what i wanted to read about, and i read the first half of this with great attention. but then he gets beyond his education, and it is as boring as he said it would be. worth it? i guess.
January 15, 2024
This book changed my life quite honestly. I found a new light in which to examine my existence and goals. If nothing else, it motivated me to apply to PhD programs and gave me fuel for a damn good personal statement.
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