The Philosophy of Herbert Spencer

Description

Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) is remembered today only as an alleged 'Social Darwinist' who applied the theory of the survival of the fittest to society. Yet he was among the most influential and widely-read philosophers of the nineteenth century. There were few Victorian thinkers and scientists who did not know his work, and who did not formulate their own positions partly in reaction to his. Michael Taylor's book provides the only detailed and reliable modern survey of the whole corpus of Spencer's thought. Taylor introduces a Spencer very different to his posthumous reputation: not primarily a political philosopher, but the architect of a comprehensive philosophical system that aimed to demonstrate the inevitability of human perfection through universal natural laws. He also locates the Synthetic Philosophy firmly in its place and time by showing how it developed out of the concerns of a group of like-minded British writers and thinkers during the 1850s. This book will be of interest to historians of philosophy and of science, to social scientists, to scholars and students of nineteenth century literature, and to anyone who wishes to understand one of most important figures in Victorian intellectual life.

Michael Taylor has had a varied career as journalist, academic and central banker. His numerous publications include Men versus the State: Herbert Spencer and Late Victorian Individualism (OUP, 1992) and contributions to the New Dictionary of National Biography.

"Taylor, aiming to describe the whole body of Spencer's thought, nicely explains the so-called law of evolution, and rightly locates it as central to that corpus, not only to biology, but to metaphysics, psychology, and sociology, and not only to these descriptive sciences but also normatively to ethics. He carefully presents the difficulties in Spencer's central ideas, but never with an unfair emphasis that could make Spencer seem simply dogmatic or foolish...Taylor locates Spencer's thought in the story of his life, and shows how the latter was entirely relevant to the former...If you want a good survey of Spencer's thought, nice but not too probing beyond what has become customary, then Taylor's is recommended." - Fred Wilson, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, May 2008