Herbert Spencer | |
|---|---|
 Spencer at the age of 73 | |
| Born | 27 April 1820 Derby, Derbyshire, England |
| Died | 8 December 1903 (aged 83) |
| Notable work | Social Statics (1851) The Man Versus the State (1884) |
| Era | 19th-century philosophy |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| School | Classical liberalism |
Main interests | Anthropology · Biology · Evolution · Laissez-faire · Positivism · Psychology · Sociology · Utilitarianism |
Notable ideas | Social Darwinism Survival of the fittest Social organism Law of equal liberty There is no alternative |
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Herbert Spencer (27 April 1820 – 8 December 1903) was an English polymath active as a philosopher, psychologist, biologist, sociologist, and anthropologist. Spencer originated the expression "survival of the fittest", which he coined in Principles of Biology (1864) after reading Charles Darwin's 1859 book On the Origin of Species. The term strongly suggests natural selection, yet Spencer saw evolution as extending into realms of sociology and ethics, so he also supported Lamarckism.[1][2]
Spencer developed an all-embracing conception of evolution as the progressive development of the physical world, biological organisms, the human mind, and human culture and societies. As a polymath, he contributed to a wide range of subjects, including ethics, religion, anthropology, economics, political theory, philosophy, literature, astronomy, biology, sociology, and psychology. During his lifetime he achieved tremendous authority, mainly in English-speaking academia. Spencer was "the single most famous European intellectual in the closing decades of the nineteenth century"[3][4] but his influence declined sharply after 1900: "Who now reads Spencer?" asked Talcott Parsons in 1937.[5]
- ^ "Letter 5145 – Darwin, C. R. to Wallace, A. R., 5 July (1866)". Darwin Correspondence Project. Archived from the original on 13 May 2011. Retrieved 12 January 2010.
Maurice E. Stucke. "Better Competition Advocacy". Archived from the original on 30 April 2011. Retrieved 29 August 2007.Herbert Spencer in his Principles of Biology of 1864, vol. 1, p. 444, wrote "This survival of the fittest, which I have here sought to express in mechanical terms, is that which Mr. Darwin has called 'natural selection', or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life."
- ^ Riggenbach, Jeff (24 April 2011) The Real William Graham Sumner Archived 10 November 2014 at the Wayback Machine, Mises Institute.
- ^ Thomas Eriksen and Finn Nielsen, A History of Anthropology (2001) p. 37.
- ^ "Spencer became the most famous philosopher of his time," says Henry L. Tischler, Introduction to Sociology (2010) p. 12.
- ^ Talcott Parsons, The Structure of Social Action (1937; New York: Free Press, 1968), p. 3; quoting from C. Crane Brinton, English Political Thought in the Nineteenth Century (London: Benn, 1933).