赫伯特·斯宾塞
一切——自然、心灵和社会——都从简单演化到复杂，而当国家尽可能少地干预时，社会运转得最好。
定位
维多利亚时代的体系建造者，在达尔文的《物种起源》（1859年）之前，就把进化当作从宇宙到社会的一切事物的法则；读过达尔文之后，他创造了“适者生存”（1864年）。他的名字后来与“社会达尔文主义”联系在一起——这个标签被用来为不平等和帝国辩护，比他本人的观点粗糙得多，尽管在他自己的观点中也并非毫无根据。
核心思想
- 从简单到复杂的进化
- 社会作为有机体
- 军事型社会与工业型社会
- 最小国家与自由放任
影响
受影响于 1
查尔斯·达尔文
受其影响
Spencer had formulated his evolutionism before Darwin, but after reading the Origin of Species he coined ‘survival of the fittest’ for natural selection (Principles of Biology, 1864). H. Spencer, The Principles of Biology, vol. I (1864); C. Darwin, On the Origin of Species (1859), 5th ed. (1869); SEP “Herbert Spencer”
依据: 亦见于 InPhO · InPhO
查尔斯·达尔文 › 1809–1882
影响了 3
穆罕默德·阿布笛
影响了
Abduh admired Spencer, whom he visited in Brighton in 1903, and is reported to have translated his book on education into Arabic from French; the exact passage has not been checked. A. Kateman, “Tellings of an Encounter: A Meeting between Muḥammad ʿAbduh, Herbert Spencer and Wilfrid Blunt (1903)”, Philological Encounters 3 (2018); A. Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age (1962)
依据: AI 草稿
穆罕默德·阿布笛 › 1849–1905
爱伦·凯
影响了
In The Century of the Child (1900) Key held that Spencer’s thoughts ‘contain a great truth’ and based education on the child’s own natural development. E. Key, Barnets århundrade (1900); Eng. The Century of the Child (1909); H. Spencer, Education: Intellectual, Moral, and Physical (1861)
依据: AI 草稿
爱伦·凯 › 1849–1926
严复
影响了
In the commentaries to his Tianyanlun (1898) Yan Fu sided with Spencer against Huxley, treating evolution as progress and applying the struggle for survival to nations. Yan Fu, Tianyanlun (1898), commentaries; B. Schwartz, In Search of Wealth and Power: Yen Fu and the West (1964)
依据: AI 草稿
严复 › 1854–1921
批评
受批评于 4
何塞·马蒂
受其批评
Reviewing Spencer’s “The Coming Slavery” (La América, 1884), Martí granted that state socialism might create a new servitude but objected that Spencer passed over the misery of the poor and the abuses of concentrated wealth that drive people towards it. J. Martí, “Herbert Spencer. La futura esclavitud”, La América (New York), April 1884; Obras completas XV
依据: AI 草稿
何塞·马蒂 › 1853–1895
埃米尔·涂尔干
受其批评
Durkheim argued against Spencer that industrial society cannot rest on free contracts alone, since every contract presupposes non-contractual social rules (The Division of Labour in Society, 1893, I.7). É. Durkheim, De la division du travail social (1893), Book I, ch. 7
依据: AI 草稿
埃米尔·涂尔干 › 1858–1917
亨利·柏格森
受其批评
Bergson, once drawn to Spencer, charged his ‘false evolutionism’ with rebuilding evolution out of fragments of the already evolved, missing real duration (Creative Evolution, 1907, ch. 4). H. Bergson, L’Évolution créatrice (1907), ch. IV; SEP “Henri Bergson”
依据: AI 草稿
亨利·柏格森 › 1859–1941
塔尔科特·帕森斯
受其批评
Parsons opened The Structure of Social Action (1937) with Brinton’s question ‘Who now reads Spencer?’, declaring Spencer’s positivist, utilitarian evolutionism dead. T. Parsons, The Structure of Social Action (1937), ch. 1; C. Brinton, English Political Thought in the Nineteenth Century (1933)
依据: AI 草稿
塔尔科特·帕森斯 › 1902–1979
批评了 2
杰里米·边沁
批评了
Spencer objected that Bentham’s greatest-happiness principle gives no guidance, since happiness is undefinable, and put the law of equal freedom in its place (Social Statics, 1851). H. Spencer, Social Statics (1851), Introduction (“The Doctrine of Expediency”), ch. 4
依据: AI 草稿
杰里米·边沁 › 1748–1832
奥古斯特·孔德
批评了
In ‘Reasons for Dissenting from the Philosophy of M. Comte’ (1864) Spencer rejected Comte’s linear classification of the sciences and denied being his follower. H. Spencer, “Reasons for Dissenting from the Philosophy of M. Comte” (1864), appended to The Classification of the Sciences (1864)
依据: AI 草稿
奥古斯特·孔德 › 1798–1857
作品
- 1876社会学原理
社会如同一个生长着的有机体——从“原始人”的观念和家庭制度，到军事型社会与工业型社会的对比。
立场
Spencer believed that one law governs the whole of reality: evolution, the movement from simple, uniform states to complex, differentiated and integrated ones. He formulated it before Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859) and understood it largely in Lamarck’s terms, through the inheritance of acquired characteristics; after reading Darwin he coined the phrase “survival of the fittest” (1864). Society, for Spencer, is an organism whose parts become ever more specialised and interdependent. He contrasted “militant” societies, held together by force and command, with “industrial” societies based on voluntary cooperation and contract, and he defended a strictly limited state: poor relief and state welfare would only hinder adaptation. The label “Social Darwinism”, used mostly by critics and made current by Richard Hofstadter’s study of 1944, cast him as its chief theorist. His ideas were indeed cited to justify laissez-faire capitalism, racial hierarchy and empire, and he shared the Victorian ranking of “primitive” and “civilised” peoples; yet he also opposed militarism and the Boer War. Durkheim answered his theory of contract, and Parsons opened his book of 1937 by borrowing the question “Who now reads Spencer?”
生平与背景
Herbert Spencer was born in 1820 in Derby, the son of a Dissenting schoolteacher, and was educated at home and by an uncle; he never attended university. He worked as a railway engineer and, from 1848 to 1853, as sub-editor of The Economist, during which time he published his first book, Social Statics (1851). An inheritance allowed him to live as an independent writer. From 1860 he spent almost four decades on his System of Synthetic Philosophy, which ran from First Principles (1862) through biology, psychology and sociology to ethics. He was one of the most widely read thinkers of the Victorian age, especially in the United States. In poor health for much of his life, he never married and died in Brighton in 1903.
其他主要作品
- Social Statics (1851)
- First Principles (1862)
- The Principles of Biology (1864–67)
- The Study of Sociology (1873)
- The Principles of Sociology (1876–96)
- The Man versus the State (1884)
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