And I will answer it with some context-free listing of philosophers, attributing the choice of names to what unnamed authorities "consider" to be the case. Let's go.
On the continent of Europe? Christian Wolff, Immanuel Kant, G.W.F. Hegel, Auguste Comte, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche all come to mind.
The British isles? George Berkeley, David Hume, Thomas Reid, Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham, Thomas Carlyle fit the bill.
North America? Ah, there’s Jonathan Edwards, Benjamin Franklin, R.W. Emerson, Margaret Fuller, C.S. Peirce, and William James.
Anywhere else? You pays your money and you takes your choice.
Fuller is the only name among those 18 that might seem a non-canonical intrusion. So I have put her photo above. Fuller's significance will be worth a separate post, perhaps as early as next week.
But I do think it is a fun fact that among those 18 names I have included both participants in one of the most famous exchanges in philosophic history.
"I accept the universe." -- Fuller
"By Gad, she'd better!" - Carlyle. urchoic
Christopher, there are two names on your list I don't know about: Christian Wolff and Thomas Reid. I would have replaced them with, respectively, Arthur Schopenhauer and John Stuart Mill, both of whom were highly influential.
ReplyDeleteI forgot: Happy birthday!
DeleteHenry, Thank you for the birthday wish. As to Reid, I think he has had great influence as the first to make certain important criticisms of the nihilistic side of Humeanism. As to Wolff, as you probably know, he is of importance chiefly as a human bridge between Leibniz and the early Kant. Leibniz, despite HIS great influence, is not on our list because he is more a late 17th century figure. Anyway, on that one I concede your point. Though Wolff has that historic importance, Schopenhauer may have more.
DeleteChristopher, since, as I said, I am unfamiliar with Reid, I am not in a position to compare his level of influence with Mill's. But I can quote this from the Wikipedia article on Mill: "One of the most influential thinkers in the history of 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...." Perhaps, though, Mill's influence was primarily on political thinking rather than on academic philosophy.
ReplyDeleteStanford Encyclopedia also has a good piece on Reid
DeleteHow indebted is J. S. Mill to Wilhelm von Humboldt for the foundational ideas of Liberalism?
ReplyDeleteI don't know. So ignorant am I, in fact, that when I first read your question I thought of a different Humboldt entirely -- Wilhelm's brother Alexander. But Alexander, who wrote a lot, about many subjects especially biology and geography, didn't write anything that could have had the consequence you describe. When I DID get my Humboldt brothers straightened out, though, and I did a tiny bit of research, I realized that you have a point. Beyond that, I will only say that I like to give a lot of credit to Benjamin Constant, whose "Liberty of Ancients and Moderns" certainly contributed to the development of liberalism in the Millian sense well before Mill caught on to it.
DeleteAccording to Wikipedia, "In 1804, Alexander von Humboldt visited the United States and expressed the idea that slavery was not a good way to treat citizens; this was during Thomas Jefferson's presidency. Humboldt's ideas were expanded by the following generation of American politicians, writers, and clergymen, among them Abraham Lincoln and Ralph Waldo Emerson." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_of_slavery_in_the_United_States
ReplyDeleteWikipedia's article on Alexander von Humboldt himself states that some scholars claim "that Humboldt dedicated large parts of his work to describing the conditions of slaves, indigenous peoples, mixed-race castas, and society in general. He often showed his disgust for the slavery and inhumane conditions in which indigenous peoples and others were treated and he often criticized Spanish colonial policies."
Thus, Alexander von Humboldt did share with Mill an opposition to slavery. Mill's Wikipedia article states that he expressed it in his essay "The Subjection of Women."