Auguste Comte and Positivism - Mill, John Stuart

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Résumé :
One of the foremost figures of Western intellectual thought in the late 19th century, John Stuart Mill offered up examinations of human rights, personal and societal rights and responsibilities, and the striving for individual happiness that continue to impact our philosophies, both private and political, to this day. This concise but explosive essay is perhaps the best example of how far-reaching-and necessary on an ongoing basis-his thinking was. In this 1865 work, Mill discusses the rational religion of French philosopher and social scientist Auguste Comte, reviewing his fellow thinker's great treatise on human behavior as knowable, quantifiable, and correctable from both positive and negative angles, endeavouring to sever, the author writes, what in our estimation is true, from the much less which is erroneous. English philosopher and politician JOHN STUART MILL (1806-1873) served as an administrator in the East Indian Company from 1823 to 1858, and as a member of parliament from 1865 to 1868. Among his essays on a wide range of political and social thought are Principles of Political Economy (1848), Considerations on Representative Government (1861), and The Subjection of Women (1869).

Biographie:
John Stuart Mill (20 May 1806 - 7 May 1873) was an English philosopher, political economist, politician and civil servant. One of the most influential thinkers in the history of classical liberalism, he contributed widely to social theory, political theory, and political economy. Dubbed the most influential English-speaking philosopher of the nineteenth century by the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,[11] he conceived of liberty as justifying the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state and social control.[12]Mill was a proponent of utilitarianism, an ethical theory developed by his predecessor Jeremy Bentham. He contributed to the investigation of scientific methodology, though his knowledge of the topic was based on the writings of others, notably William Whewell, John Herschel, and Auguste Comte, and research carried out for Mill by Alexander Bain. He engaged in written debate with Whewell.[13]A member of the Liberal Party and author of the early feminist work The Subjection of Women, Mill was also the second member of Parliament to call for women's suffrage after Henry Hunt in 1832