Study Questions on Mill,
Autobiography
Introduction
In
this introduction the editor tries to fit Mill into the broader framework of
early 19th century European thought. How does the editor fit Mill into the context of the
Enlightenment, Romanticism, Utilitarianism, and Utopian socialism?
Chapter
1
How
does Mill describe the era into which he was born?
What does he mean by this?
How
does Mill describe his father's place in English society?
Describe the stages of Mill's education between
What
was his father's basic method of instruction?
What was the goal?
What
sort of contact did Mill have with others of his age?
Why? What did Mill do
"for enjoyment" as a child?
Explain.
Think
back to our discussions of the Enlightenment and of ideas about education.
In what ways was Mill's education a product of the Enlightenment?
Chapter
2
What
or who was the major moral influence on Mill as a youth?
With
what sort of spiritual beliefs was the young Mill raised?
Did
Mill grow up without any clear moral standards?
Explain.
How
did his father differentiate good from bad, etc.?
How
would describe the emotional atmosphere of Mill's youth?
How does Mill explain this?
What
effect did living in France in 1820 have upon the young Mill, and why?
How
did it shape his opinions of life in England as opposed to life on the
continent?
Chapter
3
What
effect did study of the French Revolution have on Mill's life and ideas and why?
Just
what about Benthamism was so attractive to Mill?
Why did it give "unity to [his] conception of things"?
What
were the major interests linking young Mill to his friends Grote and Austin,
Tooke and Roebuck, etc.?
What
did Mill do for a living? Explain
the relationship between his livelihood, his father's livelihood, and their
common philosophical beliefs.
Chapter
4
What
about English public life in the early 1820s did Mill and his compatriots find
unjust and irrational?
What
was the Westminster Review, and what was its general editorial aim?
In
what sense did the Westminster Review represent a radical-Liberal
perspective? What sort of
positions, for instance, did it take on issues of representation?
Freedom of thought? Free
trade?
What
means of disseminating Benthamite and other left-Liberal ideas does Mill explain
in this chapter?
How
did Mill"s father's argument for democracy differ from the
"classical" liberalism we have discussed?
What
was the basis of the debates between Mill's cohort and the Owenites?
What were there positions in these
debates?
Chapter
5
How
old was Mill when he had his "mental crisis"?
Mill
says that the experience of his breakdown had two major effects on his
viewpoints. What were these?
Explain. How did he think a
person could become happy? What did he now consider important that he had
previously ignored?
Think
about Mill's crisis--how would you link the issues that he suffered over to what
we read of and by the
Romantics? Point out passages in which Mill himself suddenly sounds
like a Romantic.
In
what ways did Mill now turn against British Enlightenment traditions in the
analysis of politics?
What
ideas about the relationship between society, power, and state institutions did
Mill now borrow from French
radical thinkers like Saint-Simon?
How
did Mill's understanding of history change after studying French radicalism?
What
criticisms of classical liberal political economy did Mill begin to consider
based on his reading of French radicals?
Mill
says that he hoped that the poor would adopt the philosophy of the (utopian)
socialists--why?
Chapter
6
To
whom does the title of this chapter refer and why?
What
effect did reading de Tocqueville have on Mill and why?
What
in the thought of the founder of Logical Positivism, Compte, did Mill find
troubling and why?
Chapter
7
What
did Mill the philosopher have to say as an adult about the idealist concept of
"external" truths known through
intuition,, and why?
Why
does Mill say that he had been a democrat but not a socialist?
Explain.
What
soured Mill on the chance of continental Europe leading the democratic movement?
Did
Mill believe that the job of drafting laws should be given to a democratic
representative legislature? Explain.
What was Mill's view of the rights of women?
What
did Mill seem to think of the English working class?
____________________
OK, now let's connect this to our earlier readings and discussions:
1) What elements in Mill's methodology and in his basic ideas are clearly rooted in the traditions and ideas of the Enlightenment?
2) What aspects of Mill's ideas appear to be rooted in (or at least resonate with) Romanticism?
3) In what ways were Mill's views a response to the internal political contradictions in European society highlighted by the French revolution?
4) In what sense were Mill's views a response to the internal social contradictions in European society highlighted by the industrial revolution?
5)
How do Mill's arguments compare to the arguments that Shelly seems to be making
in Frankenstein?