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Auguste Comte and John Stuart Mill on Sexual Equality: Historical, Methodological and Philosophical Issues

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Auguste Comte and John Stuart Mill on Sexual Equality: Historical, Methodological and Philosophical Issues Auguste Comte and John Stuart Mill On Sexual Equality: Historical, Methodological and Philosophical Issues. Vincent Philippe Emmanuel GUILLIN London School of Economics and Political Science Thesis submitted to the University of London for the completion of the degree of a Doctor of Philosophy 2005 l UMI Number: U213B42 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U213342 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 I hereby certify that the work presented in this thesis is my own. The Candidate: CLrA.U._____ Vijicent Guillin 2 & \ Abstract: My thesis intends to show how a detailed study of the issue of sexual equality in the correspondence between Auguste Comte and John Stuart Mill can shed light (1) on the general epistemological, methodological, political, social, and moral disagreements existing between Comte and Mill, and (2) on the evolution of Mill’s arguments for the emancipation of women. I start with a summary of the circumstances which led Comte and Mill to address the topic of sexual equality and I introduce their respective views on the subject prior to the start of the correspondence in the early 1840s. I then review the various biological arguments adduced by Comte in support of his belief in the natural intellectual inferiority of women and single out his commitment to phrenology as a crucial element for his case for women’s subjection. I present Mill’s rejoinder to Comte’s phrenological case and explain how it relates to Mill’s defense of associationist psychology and the conception of the “logic of the moral sciences” developed in hisSystem of Logic. I then turn to Comte’s sociological arguments for the subjection of women. I show how they in fact rely on a biologically inspired conception of human “development”, and present the interpretation of the historical record Mill opposes to Comte. The subsequent chapter introduces Mill’s pet project of Ethology, which he thought would provide proper knowledge of human nature capable of adjudicating the sexual equality debate. Furthermore it analyses the methodological obstacles which prevented Mill from developing this new ‘science of the formation of human character’. I conclude by showing how his failed attempt at founding Ethology forced Mill to find (most notably in hisSubjection of Women) alternative arguments for the emancipation of women and investigate how they tally with his mature ethical and social views on human nature. 3 Table of Contents: Acknowledgments p. 7 Abbreviations p. 8 Introduction p. 9 I - Comte and Mill on Sexual Equality : Context and Problems p. 13 A —The Beginnings of the Comte-MiU Correspondence p. 13 B — From Divorce to Human Nature p. 16 C — The “Scientificisation” of Politics: Prospects and Problems p. 18 1 — Comte against Divorce: The Defence of Family as the Basic Social Unit p. 18 2 — Mill’s Feminism: Is Mill’s Liberal Naturalism Consistent? p. 26 II - The Female Brain and the Subjection of Women: Biology, Phrenology and Sexual Equality p. 39 A — Setting the Grounds of the Debate p. 39 B — The Theoretical Relevance of Biology: Philosophical Issues p. 43 C — The Varieties of Biological Arguments for the Subjection of Women p. 46 D — Female Phrenology p. 50 III - The Phrenological Controversy p. 61 A — Comte and The Phrenological Support for Women’s Subjection p. 62 B — Comte’s Methodological Appraisal of Phrenology p. 64 C — Mill on Phrenology p. 74 1 — The Scientific Nature of the Phrenological Hypothesis p. 76 2 — Phrenology, An Unsubstantiated Hypothesis p. 82 4 IV - The Explanation of Moral Phenomena: Comte and Mill on the Architectonics of the Moral Sciences p. 89 A — The Explanation of “Moral” Phenomena p. 90 B — Mental Differences: A Case of Composition of Causes p. 96 C — The Centrality of Psychology in the Explanation of Moral Phenomena p. 103 D — The Explanation of Moral Phenomena and the Method of Residues p. 109 V - A Never Ending Subjection? Comte, Mill and the Sociological Argument against Sexual Equality p. 122 A — “Method” and “Doctrine”: Mill’s Qualified Appraisal O f Comte’s Contribution to Sociolog}' p. 124 B — The Static Argument for Women’s Subjection p. 127 C — The Shortcomings of the Static Argument p. 133 D — The Dynamic Argument p. 136 1 — The Basics of Social Dynamics p. 136 2 — What History Tells us p. 138 E — The Shortcomings of the Static Argument p. 145 1 — Mill’s Alternative Ethological Account of Women’s Lasting Subjection p. 145 2 — Sociology, Ethology and the Inverse Deductive Method p. 147 3 — The “Biologizing” of Sociology p. 150 VI - The Ethological Fiasco: The Methodological Shortcomings of the Millian Science of the Formation of Character p. 156 A — The Need for Ethology p. 157 B — Mill’s Style and Ambition as a “Moral” Scientist and Social Reformer p. 160 C — Ethology and the Deductive Method p. 169 D — The Ethological Fiasco: Complementary Explanations p. 177 5 VII - How To Discover One’s Nature: Mill’s Argument for Emancipation in the Subjection of Women p. 190 A — Inequality, Justice and Expediency p. 193 B — Inequality and History p. 195 C — Inequality and the Science of Human Nature p.197 1 — Inequality and Biology: The “Craniological” Argument for Women’s Subjection p.198 2 - The Acknowledgments of the Ethological Failure and Its Consequences p. 203 3 — The Unnaturalness of Women’s Subjection p. 205 D — The Analogical Argument for Women’s Subjection p. 211 E — Mill on “Feminine” Traits: Logical Inconsistency or Rhetorical Ingenuity? p. 215 Conclusion p. 231 Appendix I: Comtean Studies (1993-2005) p.240 Appendix II: Comte and Mill on Biology p. 256 Appendix III: Comte’s Anatomical, Physiological, Developmental and Comparative Arguments for the Subjection of Women p.269 Appendix IV: The Phrenological Sources of Comte p.288 Appendix V: A Historical Account of Mill’s Acquaintance with Phrenology p. 298 Appendix VI: Mill and the Legacy of Associationism p. 312 Bibliography p. 316 6 Acknowledgments: I am indebted to many people for their help during the writing of this thesis. First o f all, I would like to thank Prof. N. Cartwright for having agreed to supervise my work and for her unfailing support, her expert comments, her enlightening suggestions, and her concern for things that fall outside the domain of academic preoccupations. I would also like to thank my second supervisor, Mr A. Voorhoeve, whose close reading and minute analysis of the various drafts of this thesis saved it from a good many mistakes and always kept me on the path of philosophical analysis when I was tempted to wander away. I gready benefited from the congenial and stimuladng intellectual environment of the Department of Philosophy, Logic, and Scientific Method of the London School of Economics and Political Science. I would like to thank Prof. J. Worrall, Director of the Doctoral Programme, for his encouragements and patience. I owe a great debt to the administrative staff of the Department for its efficiency in dealing with all sorts of problems (J. Bohannon, T. Doyle, A. Pili, J. Rapkin, T. Scurfield, B. Tennis, K. Tiller, A. Wapplington,). In the final year of mv PhD, I had the opportunity to work as a Research Associate for the Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science. Thanks to Dr S. Hartmann, Dr. E. Montuschi, and D. Rejman for taking me on board. The generous financial and material support of die following institutions has gready helped me to start and complete my thesis on time: the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Graduate Research Fund and the Graduate Travel Fund of the LSE, the Forum for European Philosophy, the Royal Institute of Philosophy and the Maison d’Auguste Comte. Thanks to G. Looren for making the journey between Paris and London shorter. I would also like to thank the following libraries and research centres, and their staff, for their help in locating primary materials: Maison d’Auguste Comte, Paris (A. Giusti); Somerville College, Oxford (Miss P. Williams); The Wellcome Library for the History of Medicine, London; The British Library of Political Science and Economics, London; the British Library, London; Senate House Library, London; Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Paris; Bibliotheque de la Sorbonne, Paris. Throughout the years, many individuals were kind enough to let me benefit from their expertise and advice, for which I am most grateful: D. Andler, C. Audard, T. Ball, J.-F. Braunstein, J. Carroy, L. Daston, S. Dupouy, A. Fagot-Largeault, P. Fontaine, J. Gray, I. Hacking, A. Harrington, S. Laugier, R. Plas, B. Saint Semin, L. Snyder. The following people made my stay in London an incredibly fruitful experience: P. Beckmann, , G. Contessa, P. Dietsch, P. Dorstewitz, L. Farmakis, D. Fennell, G. Jones, K. King, S. Larski, A. L. Lim, L. McClimans, M. Morganti, M. Polak, Y. Ramati, D. Ronnegard, M. Rossi, A. Saaristo, S. Steed, C. Stephen, M. Sivarajah, A. Virdi, I. Votsis, G. Zouros. Finally, I would like to thank those closest to me for their support and affection: my partner Frederique, my family and my friends. Above all, my thoughts go to my grandmother Herminie Lasselain. 7 Abbreviations : All references to the Comte-Mill correspondence are made to the following edition: O.
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