Herbert Spencer

Herbert Spencer (* April 27, 1820 in Derby, † December 8, 1903 in Brighton ) was an English philosopher and sociologist. He was the first applied the theory of evolution ( here: the concept of "survival of the fittest" ) on social development and thus established the paradigm of evolutionism, which is regarded by some as a precursor of social Darwinism.

Life

After his education he received mostly at home, Spencer worked from 1837 to 1846 when the London and Birmingham Railway as a railroad engineer ( draftsman), a substitute teacher and from 1848 to 1853 as editor of the Economist and a freelance writer. Within the Chartist movement, he became involved in the struggle for universal suffrage. The death of his uncle Thomas Spencer in 1853 and the associated inheritance that allowed Spencer to abandon his post and living as a freelance writer.

As a sociologist and philosopher Spencer was an autodidact. He read especially scientific texts ( Lamarck, Carpenter) and applied the ideas gained there to the society. He insisted in his writings on the use of (natural) scientific methods and knowledge for philosophical studies.

Politically Spencer was firmly rooted in classical liberalism, which was reflected especially in his later work. Spencer tried to unite " the synthetic system of philosophy " all the knowledge of his time in one.

Work and impact

As Saint -Simon, Auguste Comte and Karl Marx sought Spencer for an explanation of social change or the stages of development of a society. Impressed by the theories of Lamarck, he turned this in Social Statics ( 1851) for the first time on social systems. Lamarck postulated that the evolution of living beings takes place due to external factors, while the common social science paradigm that time, positivism, the company explained only with social factors. In Social Statics Spencer describes the company as " About organism " with organs that follow the Lamarckian laws of growth and decline. In The Social Organism (1860 ), he works out these ideas.

By 1860, Spencer began his life's work: The synthesis of the whole human knowledge, based on a ubiquitous, in all living beings acting principle: evolution. Only the evolution laws allow to Spencer the structuring and integration of empirical data from all the physical, social and psychological fields of science under a principle; therefore evolutionism ask the first science-based worldview dar. As an avid supporter of Darwinism, he believed, should apply the principle of evolution in all the sciences and to thereby unite them into a " system of synthetic philosophy." Spencer was convinced to have in the self-organizing genesis of things found an important key to understanding. The point that things are developing in the world without divine ( or otherwise) while steering from " simple " something " more complex " or " higher" formed was revolutionary for its time. As John Stuart Mill, Spencer pleaded for strict empiricism; with Immanuel Kant, although he separated categorically between phenomena, but he wrote the objects of experience an inherent power to which he calls " unfathomable " saw as a manifestation of. Scientific knowledge is thus different from the ordinary only by very precise description of the world of experience, and by the discovery of universal laws within the science disciplines.

After reading Carpenter Spencer takes over his theses in his First Principles (1860 ) and postulated that evolve to the heterogeneous back also in the social sphere all things from the homogeneous. By deduction he explains his " universal postulate of cultural evolution ": not just biological organisms, but also the education, lifestyles, social conventions, psychology, politics, etc. would follow and without " divine " or other exposure to this Act from the outside (First principles, 1862). On another point, Spencer is here on a line with his positivist contemporaries (such as Comte ): They also see the development of sociology into broad development or reorganization of all science disciplines on the one hand and an equal, all-pervading law, on the other hand.

Finally, Spencer developed in his other principles, starting from the various previously developed theories of evolution, a general philosophy: The entire universe is functioning like a giant organism, which leads ever higher specialization and differentiation over time to a more harmonious coordination of the individual components. As previously Comte, Spencer is determined the same development not only for the whole, but within each of the individual components. The Principles of Biology ( 1864-67 ) integrated Spencer both the theories of Charles Darwin, Alfred Russel Wallace, but also Henri Milne Edwards about the division of labor in organisms.

As a sociologist and evolutionary theorist Spencer is regarded by some as the founder of social Darwinism. He popularized the concept of evolution for social development, as he coined (and not Charles Darwin) the concept of "survival of the fittest" ( survival of the fittest, see theory of evolution ), where he Darwin's " natural selection " to " fight for existence " made ​​.

A social development proceeds according to Spencer similar to that of a biological organism. Controlled by the invisible hand of evolution continues the long term by what best contributes to the survival of the organism. This process is non - Adapted, ie the socially disadvantaged, the progress of society in the way. Spencer saw in India " Eurasians " an example of " degeneration " due to ethnic mixing and wished that marriages between different ethnic groups " entschiedenst prohibited " would.

Unlike later Social Darwinists Spencer was firmly rooted in liberalism. Starting from its Protestant ethic he postulated the Law of Equal Freedom ( LEF; law of equal freedom ) that a man has any freedom, as long as it does not encroach on the freedom of another. Both of these ethical reasons as well, because they are contrary to the logic of evolution, Spencer refused any intervention of the state in human society. In his most political work, The Man Versus the State, he was consequently so far as to demand the right of every individual to secede from the state.

Spencer's tomb found near the Karl Marx on the London Highgate Cemetery.

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