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A Victorian Debate on Science and Society

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A Victorian Debate on Science and Society Book Reviews Reforming Philosophy: one. The son of a carpenter and twelve A Victorian Debate on years older than Mill, William Whewell Science and Society entered Cambridge University on a schol- arship to study science and mathematics. by Laura J. Snyder. He was elected to the Royal Society at age Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006. twenty-three and remained throughout his 386 pp. $45.00 (cloth). life an active member of the major math- Reviewed by John P. McCaskey ematical and scientific communities and institutions in Britain. He spent his whole The 19th-century philosopher John Stuart career at Cambridge. At different times Mill is widely regarded as one of history’s he was professor of mineralogy, professor leading proponents of inductive science of moral philosophy, and vice-chancellor and of political liberty. Yet, oddly, phi- of the university. He penned important losophers working in his train have been works on mechanics, geology, the tides, remarkably unsuccessful in saying exactly crystallography, scientific method, history, what is wrong with the scientific skepti- international law, moral philosophy, and cism or the political tyrannies of the past political and cultural affairs. He translated one hundred and fifty years. Is it possible Plato’s dialogues and German literature. that Mr. Mill was not such a good guy after He hated Mill’s moral philosophy. all? This question is not the stated theme of Mill, in turn, hated Whewell’s philoso- Laura Snyder’s Reforming Philosophy, but it is phy of scientific knowledge—which might the underlying spirit of this excellent work seem odd, for Mill was a social reformer of scholarly intellectual history. with little expertise or background in the Snyder introduces us to Mill as he saw natural sciences. But Mill knew that every himself—a social reformer locked in epic political and moral system rests on some battle with the forces of the status quo, theory of human cognition or epistemol- whose philosophy Mill called intuition- ogy, and, as Snyder explains in chapters 1 ism and whose most forceful advocate and 2, Mill saw Whewell’s epistemology as was one William Whewell, a “lion-like the foundation for the conventional mor- man” (Tennyson’s phrase, p. 1) and Master al and social philosophies Mill wanted to of Trinity College. Mill was born into overturn. London’s elite intellectual circles. He read Whewell’s epistemology was an update Latin at age three, Greek by eight, Aristotle of Francis Bacon’s. Whewell’s system was and Plato at age twelve, scholastic logic and inductive, not deductive, and, at least as he political economy by thirteen. His first pub- articulated it, the philosophy relied on the lication was on a theory of economic value. unassailability of fundamental concepts He was sixteen. He never attended college. such as necessity and causality. As Mill He nominally had a career at Britain’s East saw things, these special concepts were just India Office, but primarily he was a writer, intuitions incapable of rational justifica- producing works on logic, political econo- tion. To accept them would be to sanction my, literature, moral philosophy, and cur- building whole epistemological, moral, rent political and cultural affairs. and political philosophies based on what- Whereas Mill was an intellectual-class ever unjustified ideas people happened to prodigy, his nemesis was a working-class The Objective Standard • Summer 2008 107 Reproduced by permission granted Oct 20, 2010. Book Reviews have in their heads. To do that would have duction, causality, and necessity has per- been to thwart Mill’s campaign of social vaded scientific epistemology ever since. reform. In chapter 3, “Reforming Science,” In what Snyder calls Mill’s “radical- Snyder unfolds some implications of Mill’s ization of induction” (ch. 2), Mill turned philosophy of science and highlights Whewell’s philosophy inside out. Mill other differences he had with Whewell. granted (or rather misunderstood then Particularly interesting is Mill’s denial, granted) Whewell’s claim that induction natural enough given his premises, of the depends on accepting notions of, for exam- possibility of knowing causes that are not ple, causality and necessity, but he assigned directly perceivable—this at the very mo- them a much different role in human cog- ment when the sciences of imperceptible nition and denied that one could justifiably molecules and unobservable electromag- accept these notions. To Mill, induction is netic fields were advancing by leaps. But not an autonomous method but just a kind some of the most eye-opening aspects of of deduction, a kind in which these contest- Mill’s philosophy—and some of Snyder’s ed notions provide crucial premises. But if most interesting conclusions because they these notions are empty, then the premises integrate her several lines of inquiry— are untrue, the deductions are invalid, and come in chapter 4, “Reforming Culture: Whewell’s whole inductive method falls Morality and Politics.” apart. Mill did not completely abandon in- What, we may step back to ask, was duction and indeed offered his famous rules this social reformer’s big goal? He wrote for how best to reason inductively. But he on the subjection of women, slavery, pov- held that these rules apply only in limited erty, capital punishment, parliamentary cases, and he thought that in the future the structure, population, and economics. He best scientists would rely on deduction not had been reared to be a social commenta- induction. tor, and he played the role throughout his Mill’s rejection of Whewell’s methods life. He attacked any epistemology that he did not end with his rejection of induction. thought stood in the way of his reforms. He developed a philosophy that Snyder But what did he think was fundamentally labels “ultra-empiricism” (p. 106). Mill wrong with society and think should be its rejected not only causality, mathemati- guiding principle? cal certainty, and scientific necessity but Mill was always a utilitarian. even knowledge of the materiality of the Utilitarianism had two central doctrines: in observed world. His premises and goals ethics, that the moral is that which contrib- forced him to conclude that reality is noth- utes to the greatest happiness for the great- ing more than the “‘Permanent Possibility est number; and in politics, that every man of Sensation’” (p. 131), his metaphysics should be free to act as he chooses as long reduced itself to that of Bishop Berkeley as the action does not harm others. The (“To be is to be perceived”), and by late first had long drawn criticism. It seemed in life Mill acknowledged that he had “no to sanction the most ignoble pursuits and quarrel” (p. 135) with the metaphysics of even to give preference to common over Immanuel Kant. Unfortunately, Mill’s refined pleasures. If one man’s enjoyment whole framework for thinking about in- of poetry could be sacrificed to give ten 108 The Objective Standard • Summer 2008 Reproduced by permission granted Oct 20, 2010. Book Reviews men enjoyment from a game of pushpin, ishness” and “miserable individuality” (p. utilitarian morality demanded the trade. 240) and find happiness in contributing to Jeremy Bentham, the leading utilitarian the common good, a common good de- of the previous generation, thought this fined and promoted by a society’s selfless was right, but Mill found it troubling. Mill intellectual elite. came to think that quality of happiness I wish Snyder had said something about was more important than mere quantity. Mill’s views on educational institutions. If Happiness would be improved, Mill held, she is right that Mill saw a certain episte- if people were taught to value higher plea- mology as the foundation for social reform, sures. Which pleasures were in fact higher I would expect him to have had strong should be determined, Mill concluded, by views about how young citizens should be an “intellectual clerisy” (p.12). This cul- taught to think. Given the “low intellectual tural elite would take on educating the and moral state of all classes” (p. 311), will common men, and common men in turn the citizens go freely to be reeducated? If would learn to submit to the guidance of not, then what? How will they be taught to their betters. place the common good above their selfish Thus Mill retained but importantly al- interests? But let me set this and occasional tered the utilitarian moral doctrine, and he disagreements aside and draw the follow- did the same with the political doctrine. ing conclusion. His direction there becomes clear when Reforming Philosophy is an example of in- we consider the ambiguity in that utilitar- tellectual history done well. Snyder recon- ian phrase, “as long as the action does not structs the full context in which selected harm others.” This could be taken to mean historical figures thought, wrote, and acted, “as long as one does not violate the rights but thankfully she does not cast their ideas of any other individual.” But Mill did not as products determined by that context. take it this way. He understood “others” as Instead, she examines a writer’s own goals a collective. His mature political doctrine and ambitions, chosen enemies and influ- amounted to this: An individual should be ences, and whole oeuvre to help us better free to act in any way that does not harm understand the writer’s ideas. Her use of the public good. Though Snyder does not neglected source material, such as drafts, mention it, this, of course, is the stock con- overlooked writings, and unpublished let- struction of socialist constitutions. The ters, is particularly rewarding. I recom- 1977 Soviet constitution, for example, mend the book to anyone interested in a guarantees freedom of speech, of assembly, scholarly treatment of Victorian England, of religion, of self-government, of proper- of 19th-century science, of the history of ty, and so forth—and then reverses all such scientific method, of the philosophy of guarantees by saying, “Enjoyment of the induction, or of the underappreciated his- rights and freedoms of citizens must not be torian and philosopher William Whewell.
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