Works of Mr. Spencer. Spencer: biography life ideas philosophy: herbert spencer

The famous positivist philosopher Herbert Spencer was born in England, in the county of Derby on April 27, 1820. In his early youth, Spencer was a civil engineer, but already in 1845 he left this profession and devoted himself entirely to science. In addition to a number of scientific and journalistic articles, which were initially published in various periodicals, and then published separately in three volumes under the general title: “Essays”, Spencer wrote: “Social Statics”, “The Study of Sociology”, “ Education" and "System of synthetic philosophy". This last work is the main work that gave Herbert Spencer worldwide fame. Under the general title: “System of Synthetic Philosophy,” a number of volumes have been published, which, although connected by general ideas, can largely be considered as separate works. “Synthetic Philosophy” consists of: one volume of “Fundamentals”, two volumes of “Foundations of Biology”, two volumes of “Foundations of Psychology”, three volumes of “Foundations of Sociology” and two volumes of “Foundations of the Science of Morality”.

In his Fundamental Principles, Herbert Spencer sets out the most general principles of his philosophy. Based on the principle of the relativity of knowledge, he arrives at what is typical for all positivists the conclusion that "ultimate scientific ideas correspond to realities that cannot be comprehended", that "the reality behind all appearances must remain forever unknowable", and philosophy must therefore concentrate on the study of not essence things, but given to us in experience relations between them. Moving into the realm of this “knowable,” Spencer begins by defining philosophy as a completely unified knowledge. From this point of view, two forms of philosophy can be distinguished: general philosophy, in which particular truths serve to clarify universal truths, and private philosophy, in which recognized universal truths serve to interpret particular truths. "Fundamental Principles" deals with philosophy of the first kind, and all other parts of "Synthetic Philosophy" are devoted to philosophy of the second kind.

English philosopher Herbert Spencer

The main doctrine of Herbert Spencer is the doctrine of evolution, which he defines as follows: “Evolution is the integration of matter and the accompanying dispersion of motion, matter passing from a state of indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a state of definite, coherent heterogeneity, and the preserved motion undergoing parallel changes.” It is impossible not to point out the similarity of Spencer's ideas about evolution with the teaching von Baer, however, Spencer expanded Baer’s thought so much and reworked it so originally that his right to be considered a completely independent creator of the doctrine he expounds cannot be doubted. Herbert Spencer considers the main reason for evolution to be “the instability of the homogeneous.” Infinite and absolute homogeneity, according to his ideas, would be completely stable, but in the absence of such homogeneity, a redistribution of matter and force inevitably begins, in which different parts of the homogeneous are subjected to unequal action of external forces, and as a result, the homogeneous turns into heterogeneous. In the end, the basis of all evolutionary phenomena is the principle of conservation (constancy) of force. Thus, Spencer takes as the main starting point of his ideas the undoubted and generally accepted principle of the conservation of energy, and his entire doctrine of evolution is a logical conclusion from this principle. The weak side of Spencer's ideas lies in the insufficiently developed theory of knowledge, in the fact that he operates on the concepts of matter and force without sufficient criticism, and the very doctrine of the relativity of knowledge was adopted by him in the unsatisfactory form in which it was before him. Although the doctrine of physical evolution, as a transition from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity, cannot be accepted in its entirety wrong,it is undoubtedly insufficient. The doctrine of the cause of the evolution of matter then underwent especially profound changes.

In “Principles of Biology,” Herbert Spencer develops ideas about the application of the law of evolution to the organic world, to the phenomena of life, which he defines as “the continuous adaptation of internal relations to external relations.” The main idea at the center of Spencer's biology is the doctrine of the dependence of the manifestations of life on the environment. The interactions of the organism and the environment are subject, according to Spencer, to the mechanical law of equality of action and reaction. All changes in organic matter are aimed at establishing a balance between the action of the environment and the reaction of the organism. This equilibrium is established either by direct equilibrium, when an external force directly causes certain structural changes, or by indirect equilibrium - Darwinian natural selection. Thus, in the question of the origin of species, Herbert Spencer admits both Lamarckian the principle of inheritance of functionally acquired changes, and Darwinian the principle of natural selection. The principle of transferring functionally acquired changes to offspring during the further development of biology has not been confirmed.

The Foundations of Psychology are distinguished by the greatest wealth of ideas. Here Spencer studies the evolution of the spirit. Starting from the most elementary manifestations of spiritual life, he, step by step, constantly remaining faithful to his basic method, reproduces the structure of its most complex manifestations. Then, taking the most complex manifestations of the spirit, he, by analysis, gradually resolves them into their elementary constituent parts. By means of this double device (synthesis and analysis), Herbert Spencer proves with remarkable consistency the fundamental unity and continuity of the structure of the human spirit, and the close connection between spiritual life and the outside world. According to Spencer, mental phenomena are subjective expressions of external reality. In his Psychology, Herbert Spencer takes an original position in the debate between sensualists, who claim that there is nothing in the spirit that was not previously in sensation, and apriorists, who, in one form or another, recognized that some spiritual phenomena do not depend on sensations. Spencer acknowledges the existence of innate "forms of thought" (and contemplation), but argues that these "forms" are the product of mental evolution, that they are nothing more than the recorded experience of ancestors. Being innate to us, they owe their historical origin to experience.

Herbert Spencer's "Principles of Sociology" is almost as rich in secondary ideas as "Principles of Psychology." As for the main idea, it is still the same here - the idea of evolution. In parts 3, 4, 5 and 6 of the Foundations of Sociology, Spencer studies the evolution of domestic, ritual, political and ecclesiastical institutions; the first two parts examine “Data from Sociology” and “Indications from Sociology.” Of Spencer's sociological ideas, the most famous are the doctrine of the origin of primitive beliefs and doctrine of analogy between society and organism.

Two volumes of “Foundations of the Science of Morality” are devoted to the study of the evolution of morality. Spencer is a strong supporter of utilitarianism, which, however, in its revision is hedonism (a philosophical theory that places pleasure at the forefront).

The philosophy of Herbert Spencer received very different assessments among his contemporaries. Some scientists ( J. Stuart Mill, Lewis, Ribot) considered Spencer a first-class genius, one of the greatest philosophers, but others, paying tribute to his comprehensive information and the wealth of his basic ideas, still refused to recognize Spencer as a first-class mind. However, it can hardly be denied that the scheme of evolution and the ingenious attempts to reconcile the sensualists and apriorists made the teachings of Herbert Spencer a rather important fact in the history of philosophy.

Introduction

Herbert Spencer was born in 1820 in the small English town of Derby in the family of a schoolteacher. Due to poor health, Spencer was unable to attend school regularly and was primarily self-taught. He studied the natural sciences, such as mathematics and mechanics, most in depth, paying less attention to the humanities.

Then working for almost ten years as a railroad engineer, Spencer continued to educate himself in his spare time, and in 1848 he became editor of the Economist magazine, in which he published a number of his scientific works. In 1853, having received a rich inheritance after the death of a relative, he left the service and began the life of an independent researcher and publicist.

Herbert Spencer's scientific interests were extremely wide-ranging, and sociology was only one of a wide range of sciences in which he studied, but it was in sociology that he made his most significant contribution. In 1950, Herbert Spencer's first sociological work, Social Statics, was published. The most fundamental monograph, “Foundations of Sociology,” which contains an integral sociological system developed by Spencer, was written much later, in 1877.

Spencer's sociological views are usually characterized as "evolutionary-organismic theory", since the key ideas of Spencer's sociological theory are associated with the results of a comparative analysis of human society and a living organism with an emphasis on issues of development (evolution).

The connection between Spencer's sociological theory and general biology, which best suits the interests of the author of this work, determined the choice of this topic for the test.

1. Scientific and methodological foundations of the sociological theory of G. Spencer

The mid-19th century was characterized by the widespread dissemination of Charles Darwin's theory, which had a great influence on all areas of scientific knowledge. Sociological science at that time was in its infancy and was limited to a single major theory - the theory of its founder, the French scientist Auguste Comte, which was perceived in scientific circles mainly with skepticism.

G. Spencer, following O. Comte, sought to create “a science of society that, like physics or biology, could discover and justify the laws of social development.” He paid special attention to the problem of impartial objectivity in social sciences. Spencer believed that sociology should be based on the principle of “freedom from value judgments”, i.e. “the separation of what actually exists, which is confirmed by facts and can be empirically cross-checked by other researchers, from what is desirable from the perspective of social groups, political movements or religious (ideological) views.” According to Spencer, social scientists must make a conscious effort to free themselves from inevitable biases and prejudices.

According to Spencer, "there can be no complete acceptance of sociology as a science while the conviction persists that the social order does not follow the law of nature." Influenced by Darwin's theory, Spencer used evolutionary approach to the study of society, believing that all aspects of the universe, organic or inorganic, social or non-social, are subject to the laws of evolution. In his works the author used historical-comparative method analysis of extensive ethnographic material, which allows us to consistently trace the course of development of society in different cultures.

As a result, Spencer came to the conclusion that biological evolution and the development of society (social evolution) are characterized by the same patterns, and carried out analogy between society and a biological organism. Spencer highlighted the following similarities between society (social organism) and a living organism:

At the same time, according to Spencer, it is impossible to completely identify biological and social organisms, since the following basic principles exist between them: differences :

2. Social evolution: G. Spencer’s ideas about the development of society

As already noted, G. Spencer considered the development of society (social evolution) not as a spontaneous process, but as a set of natural changes that have an orderly and directed character. The evolution of human society, from Spencer’s point of view, is one of the special cases of the universal law of nature, and the patterns of development of society as a whole do not differ from the patterns of development of any other phenomena of living and inanimate nature.

He emphasized that social evolution (like any other) is a multilinear process consisting of the simultaneous implementation of several trends. According to Spencer, social (supraorganic) evolution occurs in the following main directions:

Thus, from Spencer’s point of view, social evolution represents “a transition from a state of relative uncertainty, incoherence, homogeneity to a state of relative certainty, coherence, versatility.”

Based on the concept of social evolution, Spencer developed and classification of societies, which is based on level of evolutionary complexity, i.e. stage of development at which the given society is located:

According to Spencer, social evolution occurs in stages from simple to complex societies, then to double and then to triple complex societies. In this case, the stages of complication occur sequentially. The higher the stage of development a society is, the more complex its structure is, i.e. the greater the level of differentiation characteristic of a given society: “In simple societies, where the constituent parts are generally similar to each other, they can be easily interchanged. But in complex societies, the unsuccessful actions of one part cannot be taken over by other parts. Thus, complex societies are more vulnerable and more fragile in their structure than their earlier and less perfect predecessors."

Despite the fact that any society develops according to the same laws, the features of the process of social evolution of each individual society, according to Spencer, are not uniquely predetermined. Social evolution in each case is carried out under the influence of various factors of social evolution, to which the author attributed:

Studying the influence of these factors on the course of the process of social evolution, Spencer substantiated and formulated the following laws of social development:

3. G. Spencer’s structural-functional approach to the study of society

Likening society to a biological organism, G. Spencer believed that a developed social organism (society) consists of systems of organs (social institutions), where each organ is connected with others and determines its functioning. The basis for the differences in the organ systems of society is the division of labor between social elements as a result of the process of differentiation characteristic of the evolution of the social organism. According to Spencer, structure of society includes the following components:

Depending on the characteristics of the regulatory (control) system of organs of the social organism, Spencer developed classification of societies by type of internal regulation, dividing all societies into:

According to Spencer, social evolution occurs along the path from military type societies to industrial type societies. However, the author admits " possibility of social regression– an industrial society can acquire the parameters of a military one, especially during international clashes. In a military society, the army and the people are fused together; it is characterized by total control over individuals, a rigid social hierarchy, and the forced participation of citizens in social production, who must perform certain functional duties. All social structures and the people involved in them are ultimately subordinated to the fulfillment of the military functions of society.”

Based on the fact that individuals have much greater independence and value than biological cells, and society exists for the benefit of individuals, and not vice versa, Spencer believed that in the absence of any acutely unfavorable environmental conditions, industrial society is the optimal type of social organism: “Spencer considers the essential dimension of social progress to be the transition from a society in which the individual is entirely subordinate to the social whole, to a state in which the social organism or society “serves” the individuals that compose it. As he wrote: “...The ideal to which we are moving is a society in which control will be brought to the smallest possible limits, and freedom will reach the greatest possible breadth.”

4. Political views of G. Spencer

As already noted, Herbert Spencer was of the opinion that the evolution of society is carried out under the influence of natural laws, regardless of the desires of people, and no human intervention is required for the development of society.

Therefore, Spencer opposed any social reforms and social revolutions that implied purposeful influence of people on the development of society. According to Spencer, forcibly organized social changes lead to disruption of the natural process of development of society, to disorganization of the structure of society and other negative consequences: “In this regard, the sociologist opposed the political acceleration of social progress, declaring that any attempts to artificially push social evolution through, for example, Policies regulating supply and demand, or radical political reforms without taking into account the properties of the members who make up society, must result in cataclysms and unpredictable consequences. Intervention in the natural order of nature, Spencer noted, often results in the fact that no one can predict the final results.

Based on his postulate that society exists for individuals, and not individuals for society, Spencer was an implacable opponent of ideology socialism. He was convinced that “socialism in any form implies slavery. He considered forced labor to be a characteristic feature of slavery. The degree of slavery depends on how much the slave must give and how much he can keep for himself, and who his master is - an individual or a society - does not matter in principle. If a person must give all his labor to society and receive from the common wealth only that part that society assigns to him, he is a slave of society.”

Spencer's attitude towards the state and state power was ambiguous. On the one hand, the author noted that “political organization, constantly spreading to ever larger masses, directly promotes well-being by removing those obstacles to cooperation that arise from the antagonism of individuals.” On the other hand, “political organization also has its disadvantages, and it is quite possible that these disadvantages outweigh the benefits... Organization presupposes certain restrictions on individuals, and these restrictions can reach such extreme limits that they become worse than anarchy with all its disasters.”

Spencer believed that government power should be based on the idea of justice and adhere to the following basic principles :

Recognition of every person's right to free activity and to enjoy its results;
Recognition of certain restrictions on this freedom, necessary due to the presence of other people who have the same rights.

The meaning of the existence of state power, according to Spencer, comes down to protection of the rights of individuals (citizens) and collective protection from external opponents. “The rest must be left to the free initiative of individuals entering into agreements with each other... a good society is based on agreements between individuals pursuing their respective interests. Where the state interferes with these consensual arrangements, whether for the purpose of promoting social welfare or for any other purpose, it either disrupts the social order or results in a rollback of the gains of industrial society and a return to earlier forms of tyrannical and militant social order.”

Conclusion

The sociological views of G. Spencer became widespread among his contemporaries and “were enthusiastically discussed in university classrooms and fashionable “intellectual” salons, magazine editorial offices and respectable clubs. Discussions about Spenser are led by the heroes of Jack London’s two most serious works, “The Sea Wolf” and “Martin Eden.” Even Charles Darwin himself recognized the serious influence that the work of Henry Spencer had on him.

The term “sociology” itself received a rebirth thanks to Spencer, since Comte’s theory was considered utopian and was not taken seriously in scientific circles. Therefore, Spencer is considered the second founder sociology as a science: the author “made a decisive contribution to the transformation of sociology into a science, to its purification from the messianic, utopian, political, mystical and other impurities with which it was born.”

G. Spencer laid the foundation for the formation conceptual system of sociology: he “for the first time in the history of sociology attempted to give a systematic presentation of the subject, tasks and problems of sociology. He introduced many widely used sociological terms into sociology: social system, social institution, social control, structure and function, and others.”

In addition, Spencer was the first to develop a general scientific approach in an expanded form, which later became known as general systems theory, and apply it to human society.

Thus, Spencer's sociological theory played a major role in the development of sociology as a science.

Bibliography

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SPENCER, HERBERT(Spencer, Herbert) (1820–1903) - English philosopher and sociologist, ideologist of Social Darwinism.

Born into a teacher's family on April 27, 1820 in Derby. Until the age of 13, due to poor health, he did not attend school. In 1833 he began studying at Cambridge University, but after completing a three-year preparatory course he went home and began self-education. Subsequently, he never received any scientific degree or held academic positions, which he did not regret at all.

As a youth, Spencer was more interested in mathematics and science than in the humanities. In 1837 he began working as an engineer on the construction of the railway. His extraordinary abilities were already evident then: he invented an instrument for measuring the speed of locomotives. He soon realized that his chosen profession did not give him a strong financial position and did not satisfy his spiritual needs. In 1841 Spencer took a break from his engineering career and spent two years self-educating. In 1843 he returned to his former profession, heading an engineering bureau. Having received a patent in 1846 for the sawing and planing machine he had invented, Spencer unexpectedly ended his successful technical career and went into scientific journalism, while simultaneously working on his own works.

In 1848 he became an assistant editor of the Economist magazine, and in 1850 he completed his main work Social statics. This work was very difficult for the author - he began to suffer from insomnia. Subsequently, health problems only multiplied and resulted in a series of nervous breakdowns. In 1853 he received an inheritance from his uncle, which made him financially independent and allowed him to become a free scientist. After leaving his journalistic post, he devoted himself entirely to the development and publication of his works.

His project was to write and publish by subscription a multi-volume Synthetic philosophy– an encyclopedic system of all scientific knowledge. The first attempt was unsuccessful: publication of the series had to be stopped due to the philosopher’s overwork and lack of interest among readers. He found himself on the verge of poverty. He was saved by his acquaintance with an American publisher, who undertook to publish his works in the United States, where Spencer gained wide popularity earlier than in England. Gradually his name became known, the demand for his books increased, and by 1875 he completely covered his losses and began to make a profit from the publication of his works. During this period, such of his works as two-volume Principles of biology (The Principles of Biology, 2 vol., 1864–1867), three books Foundations of Psychology (The Principles of Psychology 1855, 1870–1872) and three-volume Foundations of Sociology (The Principles of Sociology, 3 vol., 1876-1896). His numerous works soon began to enjoy enormous popularity and were published in large editions in all countries of the world (including Russia)

The central idea of all his work was the idea of evolution. By evolution he understood the transition from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity. Spencer showed that evolution is an integral feature of the entire world around us and is observed not only in all areas of nature, but also in science, art, religion and philosophy.

Spencer distinguishes three types of evolution: inorganic, organic and supraorganic. Superorganic evolution is the subject of sociology, which deals with both the description of the process of development of society and the formulation of the basic laws according to which this evolution proceeds.

He compared the structure of society to a biological organism: individual parts are an analogue of individual parts of the organism, each of which performs its own function. He identified three systems of bodies (social institutions) - supporting (production), distribution (communication) and regulatory (managerial). Any society, in order to survive, must adapt to new environmental conditions - this is how natural selection occurs. In the course of such adaptation, an increasingly strong specialization of individual parts of society occurs. As a result, like an organism, society evolves from simpler forms to more complex ones.

Using the concepts of biological evolution to study social development (this was called social Darwinism), Spencer largely contributed to the popularization of the ideas of “natural selection” in society and the “struggle for existence,” which became the basis for “scientific” racism.

Another important idea of his was the identification of two historical types of society - military and industrial. In doing so, he continued the tradition of formational analysis of social evolution established by Henri Saint-Simon and Karl Marx.

Military-type societies, according to Spencer, are characterized by the struggle for existence in the form of armed clashes, ending in the enslavement or destruction of the enemy. Cooperation in such a society is forced. Here, each worker is engaged in his craft and delivers the produced product to the consumer himself.

Gradually, society grows and there is a transition from home production to factory production. This is how a new type of society arises - industrial. Here, too, there is a struggle for existence, but in the form of competition. This type of struggle is associated with the abilities and intellectual development of individuals and ultimately brings benefits not only to the winners, but to the entire society as a whole. This society is based on voluntary cooperation.

Spencer's great merit was the recognition that the process of evolution is not straightforward. He pointed out that the industrial type of society could again regress into a military one. Criticizing popular socialist ideas, he called socialism a return to the principles of a military society with characteristic features of slavery.

During his lifetime, Spencer was recognized as one of the most outstanding thinkers of the 19th century. Nowadays, his contribution to the development of science, to the propaganda of evolutionist ideas, continues to be rated quite highly, although in the eyes of modern sociologists he loses in popularity, for example, to Emile Durkheim or Max Weber, whose works were much less famous during Spencer’s lifetime.

Works by G. Spencer (selected): Collected works, vol. 1–3, 5, 6. St. Petersburg, 1866–1869; Social statics. Statement of the laws that determine the happiness of mankind. St. Petersburg, 1872, St. Petersburg, 1906; Foundations of Sociology, vol. 1–2. St. Petersburg, 1898; Autobiography, part 1–2. St. Petersburg, Enlightenment, 1914 ; Scientific, political and philosophical experiments, vol. 1–3; Foundations of Psychology. – In the book: Spencer G., Tsiegen T. Associative psychology. M., AST, 1998.

Natalia Latova

Herbert Spencer is a famous English philosopher, biologist, astronomer, anthropologist, and sociologist. He is a representative of the classical liberal political theory of Victorian England. Spencer created the comprehensive concept of evolutionism. From his point of view, this is the progressive and consistent development of the physical world, biological organisms, human thought, culture and society. He also made contributions to such humanities as ethics, religious studies, economics, literature, and psychology. He founded the organic school in sociology. During his lifetime, this man had enormous authority, mainly among English-speaking scientists and academicians. However, in the twentieth century it was practically forgotten. The philosopher was greatly influenced by the theory of Charles Darwin, which Herbert Spencer extended to other areas of life, not just nature - in particular, sociology and ethics.

early years

The famous philosopher and sociologist was born in England, in the county of Derbyshire, in 1820. His father was William George Spencer, a religious dissident who changed denominations several times and settled on Quakerism. Apparently, he passed on to his son a dislike of all types of government repression. Herbert's father ran a school where he introduced Pestalozzi's progressive pedagogical methods, and was also secretary of the Derby Scientific Society, founded in the eighteenth century by Charles Darwin's grandfather. Herbert Spencer had great respect for his father and honored his upbringing. Members of the Scientific Society instilled in him views similar to those of evolution. His uncle, a priest, gave the boy a formal education in mathematics, physics and Latin. However, the young man gained most of his knowledge on his own, from books. From his early youth it was difficult for him to concentrate on any scientific discipline.

Mature years

The philosopher began his working career as a railway engineer. At the same time, he wrote various radical articles in progressive magazines of that time on religious and political topics. From 1848, he himself was an assistant editor at the trade union publication The Economist. It was at this time that he published his first work. Herbert Spencer, whose ideas will begin to be vyingly disseminated in scientific publications in a few years, writes the study “Social Statics”. His publisher, John Chapman, introduced the new luminary of science to his salon, which was attended by many prominent minds of the time, such as John Stuart Mill and George Eliot (pseudonym of Mary Evans). Herbert Spencer himself brought there the biologist Thomas Huxley, also nicknamed “Darwin’s Bulldog” and who became his close friend. And he had a romantic relationship with Mary Evans. At the salon, he became acquainted with the works that determined his future life - Mill’s “System of Logic” and the ideas of positivism of Auguste Comte, with which he sharply disagreed.

Herbert Spencer's early work on the universalism of natural laws

In 1855, the scientist wrote the work “Principles of Psychology,” which represents the philosophical basis for this science. The book is based on the assumption that human thinking is a consequence of natural laws and should be studied within the framework of biology. This means that it is possible to study not only the individual, but also gender, ethnicity and race. Herbert tried to combine new psychology with Mill's teachings. He suggested that thinking consists of special sensory atoms that are held together by the laws of association of ideas, and mental functions are located in special parts of the brain. The scientist was proud of his ideas and believed that this book would do for the spirit what Newton did for matter. But she wasn't very successful. Interest in psychology stemmed from a deeper problem that troubled a creative thinker like Herbert Spencer. His philosophy required to substantiate the universality of natural law. He was passionate about proving that everything in the universe - including human culture, morality and language - could be explained by scientific rules. Moreover, he believed in the possibility of discovering a single law, which he identified with progressive development and called the principle of evolution.

Crazy success

In 1858, Spencer invents his own system of synthetic philosophy. Its main criterion was the principle of evolution, which operates both in biology and in psychology, sociology and morality. He believed that he could expound his synthetic philosophy in ten volumes in twenty years, but in fact the volume of work turned out to be twice that and took up the rest of his life. Spencer was interested not only in the content, but also in the form of presentation, so he was very ambitious in being recognized as a writer. However, he achieved only that in the seventies of the nineteenth century he was considered the greatest philosopher of that time. Herbert Spencer, quotations from whose works became catchphrases during his lifetime, made a living and actually made a fortune for himself since 1869 solely by selling his books and articles to various publications. His works have been translated into German, Italian, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Japanese, French, Chinese and Japanese. He received various prestigious awards from countries all over the world - from Asia to the USA. Spencer became a member of several exclusive clubs, where only the most famous thinkers, writers and artists were admitted.

Recent years and disappointment

We can say that he achieved everything that a person could wish for. Herbert Spencer, whose books dictated scientific fashion, actually controlled the academic world community in his hands. His views influenced, to one degree or another, all nineteenth-century research. But the last years of his life brought him only loneliness and disappointment. Despite his wealth, Spencer never owned a home, never married, and since 1855 suffered from a strange illness that no doctor could diagnose. After the 1890s, most of his friends died, and he himself lost faith in the principle of evolution that he had so passionately preached. His political views became sharply conservative. If in his first work “Social Statics” he expressed ideas that women should be given the right to vote and advocated the nationalization of land, then from the 1880s he became a strong opponent of suffragism and sided with the rich latifundists (work “Man against the State”) . The only thing he remained faithful to until his death was the fight against war and militarism. Before his death, Spencer was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. He continued to write until his death, and when he could hardly see, he dictated. Herbert Spencer died in December 1903, and was buried opposite the grave of Karl Marx.

Synthetic philosophy and the principle of evolution

It has already been mentioned that Spencer offered humanity a ready-made system that, from his point of view, could replace orthodox religious faith. He preached the possibility of human improvement based on such advanced scientific concepts as the first law of thermodynamics and biological evolution. It can be said that his philosophical ideas are a mixture of deism and positivism. Although he lost his Christian faith as a teenager, it seems that subconsciously he created a concept in which the laws of nature seemed designed to lead man to an ideal. On the other hand, he tried to unify scientific knowledge and that is why he called his philosophy “synthesis.” For him, the laws of evolution could be applied to any discipline, and there were no exceptions. However, despite the influence of Darwin's theory on his concepts, Spencer's ideas are very different from those expressed in the Origin of Species. He believed that evolution has a direction and an ultimate goal, that society itself develops from lower to higher forms, just like human thinking.

Sociology and agnosticism

Spencer attempted to reformulate the social sciences according to his principles. One might consider him the “father of social Darwinism,” although he is more focused on explaining the complexity of different forms of human organization. He proposed a theory about two types of society - military and industrial, which correspond to different stages of evolution. The first type is permeated by structures of hierarchy and subordination. The second is based on voluntarily assumed social responsibilities. The military type is simple, while the industrial type is a complex organism, but nevertheless is a direct successor of the first. The driving force behind the evolution of society is individualism. Its basis, as the philosopher says, is the opportunity for a person to do whatever he wants, as long as the freedom of another is not violated. Although many conservatives reproached Spencer for atheism and materialism, he insisted that he was not at all going to undermine the foundations of religion in the name of science, but, on the contrary, to reconcile them. After all, both believe that human knowledge is relative. Therefore, we can only study phenomena (phenomena), and not reality as such. The book in which Herbert Spencer outlined these views is “Fundamentals.” It says that we can only imagine the ultimate reality, and by its nature it is unknowable.

Political Views

Spencer was close to “anarcho-capitalism” and believed that the state would exhaust itself and disappear, and its functions would be performed by the free market. He was a harsh critic of patriotism. He also believed that the individual had the right to ignore the state. But although the politicians of the subsequent century evolved in ways that Spencer would not have liked, they loved to quote him. For example, Margaret Thatcher often used the phrase “There is no alternative,” which was inspired by the style and words of the famous philosopher. Spencer's social Darwinism was also quite specific. He did not believe that there should be a struggle for survival in society and, on the contrary, he encouraged charitable activities. Nevertheless, he strongly opposed the mixing of races, saying that each of them adapted to its natural and social conditions, and their combination would produce “a bad hybrid that will not work.”

Influence

Probably the only person who managed to sell a million copies of his books during his lifetime was Herbert Spencer. “Fundamentals” and other works of the philosopher helped thousands of scientists expand the horizons of their thinking and “explode” Victorian stagnation. Polish writer Boleslaw Prus called Spenser the "Aristotle of the nineteenth century" and popularized his concept in his novel Pharaoh. He was respected by Georgy Plekhanov and Chinese and Japanese reformers, who saw in the philosopher's ideas the justification for their economic competition with Europe.

(1820-1903) - English philosopher, sociologist, psychologist One of the founders of positivism, the main representative of evolutionism, which received in the second half of the 19th century. wide use. He worked as a railroad engineer (1837-1841), then contributed to the Economist magazine (1848-1853). Since the 1850s devoted himself entirely to the development of philosophical problems. S. outlined his views in the ten-volume work System of synthetic philosophy (System of synthetic philosophy, v. 1-10, L., 1862-1896), which included the Basic Principles, the Foundations of Biology, the Foundations of Psychology, the Foundations of Sociology, and the Foundations of Ethics. In his philosophical concept, S. followed Comte's positivism, although he denied his dependence on his views. S. was also influenced by the agnosticism of D. Hume and J. S. Mill, I. Kant and the natural philosophical ideas of F.V. Schelling. Having combined the evolutionary approach with the basic principles of positivism, they were not extended only to nature and society, but also to all manifestations of mental life. Trying to combine the positivist interpretation of knowledge (requiring one to limit oneself to observable facts) with elements of apriorism, S. put forward a version according to which what is accepted as a priori (self-evident, given to the individual before any experience) actually has experimental foundations. However, the individual does not realize this, since he receives experimental knowledge by inheritance from previous generations. In psychology, S. firmly adhered to the associationist doctrine, which was dominant in the middle of the 19th century. Connecting it with the principle of development, he explained this development as an increase in associative connections, when two mental states, following one after another (both in phylogenesis and ontogenesis), are so firmly linked that when reproducing the first, there is a tendency for behavior and consciousness to something else arose. However, traditional associationism, so typical of English psychological thought, underwent an important transformation in S.’s interpretation, which was due to reliance on the principle of evolutionary explanation of everything that happens to the human body and its consciousness. S. acted as the founder of evolutionary associationism. This gave exceptional popularity to his work Fundamentals of Psychology (1855). The first edition of this book (which appeared even before Darwin's Origin of Species, where new principles for the development of living nature were outlined) went unnoticed. But the second edition of the Fundamentals of Psychology (1870-1872) brought S. all-European fame, influencing psychological teachings in various countries, including Russia. S. considered the development of the psyche as a special case of the operation of a general pattern, expressed by him by the formula: from an indefinite incoherent homogeneity to a definite coherent heterogeneity. This meant that mental life (both in the animal world and in the individual) has a single vector of evolution, during which undivided, disparate forms become increasingly differentiated and integrated. Of particular importance in psychological explanations of S. was the dissemination of a new understanding of the determination of phenomena developed by evolutionary biology. If previously an organism was interpreted as a system that is separated from its environment and adapts to it in the process of life, then in S.’s psychology an understanding was established not of the organism in itself, but of a new system: the organism is an environment as a special integrity, evolving according to its own special laws. This was clearly expressed by one of the main ideas of C, according to which life is a continuous adaptation of internal relations to external ones. From this point of view, the mental process as a type of life should also be considered. Consciousness was thereby analyzed in the context of biological adaptation. Existence and development cannot have any meaning other than adaptive. If the psyche did not serve this purpose, S believed, its appearance and development would be a miracle. Natural selection creates the psyche with inexorable necessity, and it serves as one of the most powerful weapons of survival. It followed from this that all psychological categories should be reconsidered from the point of view of their service role in survival. They are not functions or phenomena of consciousness, as given to the subject in the process of self-reporting about him, but various groupings of operations (such as perception, memory, reason, etc.), through which adaptation to the environment is realized. Thus, S. had priority in such an interpretation of the facts of consciousness, in which they would correlate both with intraorganismic connections and with characteristics of processes external to it. Hence, the view on the subject area of psychology radically changed, which at that time was limited internally to mental processes. For the middle of the 19th century. S.'s teaching was completely unusual, since introspectionism dominated in all psychological directions. It was dissatisfaction with introspectionism that prompted the ideologist of positivism O. Comte, on whose position S. relied, to deny psychology the right to be considered a real science. S. argued that, along with subjective psychology, there must be an objective one, which considers behavior not from the point of view of internal experiences, but from a position that allows us to consider the psyche as a set of neuromuscular devices. By means of these adaptations, higher organisms every moment adapt their actions to the coexistences and sequences surrounding them. From this, the eclectic nature of S’s psychological teaching was clear, which sought to reconcile subjective psychology with objective psychology under the auspices of evolutionary theory. S. made the first serious attempt to explain the psyche (both from the point of view of content and from the side of change and development) from the standpoint of the general principles of organic evolution. These explanations gave impetus to the introduction of new ideas into various psychological trends, both materialistic and idealistic. In Russia, I.M. was influenced by S. Sechenov, who set out to reconcile Spencer with Helmholtz in explaining mental development and, on this basis, develop a new doctrine about the elements of thought. S.'s view of consciousness as a tool for adaptation to the environment was adopted by Jayce, from whom he moved to American functionalism, and then to instrumentalism. Other provisions of C also had a certain influence on psychology, in particular those concerning the hereditary determination of forms of cognition and the interpretation of society as an organism developing according to the general laws of evolution. If S.'s works subsequently lost relevance, then during the formation of psychology as a science with its own subject, they created an ideological atmosphere that contributed to its reorientation towards the biological sciences and thereby strengthening the natural scientific orientation of psychology. Main works: Works, v.l -18, L-N.Y., 1910. In Russian trans. Collected Works, vol. 1-7, St. Petersburg, 1866-1869, (2nd ed. 1898-1900); Autobiography, parts 1-2, St. Petersburg, 1914. A. I. Lipkina, M. G. Yaroshevsky