Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)

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Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)

• The Advent of Evolutionary Naturalism

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Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)

• Victorian biologist and philosopher, Herbert
  Spencer was born April 27th, 1820, at the height
  of British industrialism.
• He was educated at home in mathematics, natural
  science, history and English, among some other
  languages.

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Spencers Life

• Born into a family of the British aristocracy
• He was educated at home in mathematics, natural
  science, history and English, among some other
  languages.
• Spencer was sickly in his youth, all eight of his
  other siblings dying at a young age. His
  constitution remained weak throughout his life,
  and he would later suffer from nervous breakdowns
  which he never recovered from, and he wandered
  about London never in a complete state of good
  health.

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Works and Influences

• System of Synthetic Philosophy (1862-93), which
  brought together biology, psychology, sociology,
  and ethics.
• Spencer was undoubtedly strongly influenced by
  both the demographer Thomas Robert Malthus and
  the laissez-faire economist Adam Smith.
• Rejected many of Comtes ideas concerning social
  reform that was human induced.
• To Spencer, Nature determines EVERYTHING

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Spencers Life contd.

• He suffered from chronic insomnia, could only
  work a few hours a day, and used fairly
  substantial amounts of opium.
• He experienced a strange sensation in his head
  which he called "the mischief", and was known for
  eccentricities like the wearing of ear-plugs to
  avoid over-excitement, especially when he could
  not hold his ground in an argument.

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Spencers Career

• Spencer became the sub-editor of The Economist in
  1848, then (and still!) an important financial
  weekly for the upper-middle class.
• His book Social Statics was published in 1851 to
  great acclaim, but his quietly influential
  Principles Of Psychology released in 1855 met
  with much criticism.

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Career contd.

• Although one of the most influential figures in
  sociology and psychology, Spencer was
  overshadowed because of his somewhat
  controversial ideas.
• His theory of evolution actually preceded Charles
  Darwin's, when he wrote The Developmental
  Hypothesis in 1852, 7 years before Darwin's
  Origin Of Species (1859)!

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Spencers Influence

• His theory was not taken into serious
  consideration largely because of a lack of an
  effective theoretical system for natural
  selection.
• Nevertheless, it was Spencer and not Darwin who
  first popularized the term "Evolution", and few
  people outside the field realize that the
  oft-used phrase "survival of the fittest" was
  actually coined by Spencer!

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Influences contd.

• His evolutionary stance led to his most famous
  idea, "Social Darwinism
• It influenced early evolutionary economists like
  Thorstein Veblen, as well as the members of the
  American apologist school like William Graham
  Sumner.
• He projected his theory of biological evolution
  onto a social plane, emphasizing the importance
  of organic analogy, i.e. the similarities between
  Organism and State.

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Influences contd.

• He saw evolution as the change from a homogeneous
  condition that was innately unstable, to a
  heterogeneous and stable one.
• Spencer's last years were characterized by a
  collapse of his initial optimism, replaced
  instead by a pessimism regarding the future of
  mankind.
• He died in 1903, and is buried at Highgate
  Cemetery in London near George Eliot and Karl
  Marx.

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According to Spencer

• "EVOLUTION IS AN INTEGRATION OF MATTER AND
  CONCOMITANT DISSIPATION OF MOTION DURING WHICH
  MATTER PASSES FROM AN INDEFINITE, INCOHERENT
  HOMOGENEITY TO A DEFINITE, COHERENT
  HETEROGENEITY AND DURING WHICH THE RETAINED
  MOTION UNDERGOES A PARALLEL TRANSFORMATION."

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The Organic Analysis

• Both society and organism grow during most of
  their existence baby to adult, town to city.
• As they grow, they become increasingly complex.
• The progressive differentiation of structure is
  also accompanied by progressive differentiation
  of function.

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Differences in Society and Organism

• The parts of an organism form a concrete whole,
  whereas different areas of society are free and
  relatively dispersed.
• Parts of the organism invariably exist to benefit
  the whole (tautological), whereas in society, the
  whole exists merely for the benefit of the
  individual.

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The Nature of Social Evolution

• Societies move from simple structures to various
  levels of compound structures.
• Simple consists of separate families.
• Compound consists of families organized into
  clans.
• Doubly Compound Clans are organized into tribes.
  
• Trebly Compound Tribes are further organized
  into nations.

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Thus

• An increase in size of the society results in
  increase in structure, which in turn produces
  differences in power and roles of the members.
  Different members or groups of members also start
  to play different, specialized roles.

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And as a result

• There is a movement from a military to an
  industrial society.
• At the beginning, society is characterized by the
  compulsory cooperation of its members -- the
  military society.
• The industrial society is characterized by the
  voluntary cooperation of its members.
• The highest order is called the Ethical State,
  where common resources may be used to perfect the
  human character.

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Military to Industrial Society

• MILITARY TO INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY
• A. MILITARY CHARACTERIZED BY COMPULSORY
  COOPERATION OF MEMBERS
• B. INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY CHARACTERIZED BY VOLUNTARY
  COOPERATION
• C. THE FINAL STAGE, RESOURCES MAY BE USED TO
  PERFECT HUMAN CHARACTER, - ETHICAL STATE

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Evolution of Conflict

• BETWEEN GROUPS, CLASSES, AND SOCIETIES THERE IS
  AN EQUILIBRATION OF ENERGY
• THIS TAKES THE FORM OF STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE
• AND CONFLICT BECOMES A HABITUAL ACTIVITY

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The Nature of Conflict and Militarism

• CONFLICT GIVES RISE TO TWO FEARS
• A. FEAR OF THE LIVING - LEADING TO POLITICAL
  CONTROL
• B. FEAR OF THE DEAD - LEADING TO RELIGIOUS
  CONTROL
• AS A RESULT OF THESE CONTROLS, CONFLICT BECOMES
  MILITARISM

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Spencers Four Processes

• AS A RESULT OF THIS FOCUS AND USE OF ORGANIC
  ANALOGY, SPENCER CONCERNS HIMSELF WITH FOUR
  PROCESSES OR MAJOR CONCEPTS
• 1. GROWTH
• 2. DIFFERENTIATION
• 3. INTEGRATION
• 4. ADAPTATION

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Result of Processes

• THE MOVEMENT THROUGH THE FOUR PROCESSES IS ALSO
  MOVEMENT (EVOLUTION) TOWARDS GREATER PEACE AND
  HARMONY IN HUMAN SOCIETY
• THIS WAS SPENCERS GOAL (HOPE)
• ACCORDING TO SPENCER, ALL CHANGE IS PROGRESS

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Final Ideas

• Spencer claimed that knowledge was of two kinds
• (1) knowledge gained by the individual, and
• (2) knowledge gained by the race. He said that
  intuition, or knowledge learned unconsciously,
  was the inherited knowledge or experience of the
  race.
• He also believed that there is a basic and final
  reality beyond our knowledge, which he called the
  Unknowable.

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In Summary

• Herbert Spencer (18201903) was thinking about
  ideas of evolution and progress before Charles
  Darwin published The Origin of Species (1859).
  Nonetheless, his ideas received a major boost
  from Darwin's theories and the general
  application of ideas such as "adaptation" and
  "survival of the fittest" to social thought is
  known as "Social Darwinism". It would be possible
  to argue that human evolution showed the benefits
  of cooperation and community. Spencer, and Social
  Darwinists after him took another view. He
  believed that society was evolving toward
  increasing freedom for individuals and so held
  that government intervention, ought to be minimal
  in social and political life (a direct challenge
  to Comte).