John Stuart Mill
3 books in the library
John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) was an English philosopher, economist and politician, born in London, the son of the philosopher James Mill. His father gave him an extraordinarily rigorous education, beginning Greek at the age of three, in the hope of making him a champion of Jeremy Bentham’s utilitarianism. At twenty he suffered a breakdown, from which he recovered partly through reading Wordsworth’s poetry, and he went on to broaden the philosophy he had inherited. For thirty-five years he worked for the East India Company. His books include A System of Logic (1843), Principles of Political Economy (1848), On Liberty (1859), Utilitarianism (1863) and The Subjection of Women (1869). He married Harriet Taylor in 1851 and credited her as a partner in his thinking. As a member of Parliament from 1865 to 1868 he proposed giving women the vote. He died in Avignon in 1873, and his Autobiography appeared that year.
