Herbert Spencer
Author profile
born
April 27, 1820
in Derby, Derbyshire, East Midlands, The United Kingdom
died
December 08, 1903
gender
male
genre
influences
Influenced by Charles Darwin, Thomas Henry Huxley.
Influenced Charles...more
Influenced by Charles Darwin, Thomas Henry Huxley.
Influenced Charles Darwin, Jack London(less)
About this author
Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) was an English philosopher, sociologist, and prominent classical liberal political theorist of the Victorian era.
Spencer developed an all-embracing conception of evolution as the progressive development of the physical world, biological organisms, the human mind, and human culture and societies. As a polymath, he contributed to a wide range of subjects, including ethics, religion, anthropology, economics, political theory, philosophy, biology, sociology, and psychology. During his lifetime he achieved tremendous authority, mainly in English-speaking academia. In 1902 he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.[1] Indeed, in the United Kingdom and the United States at "one time Spencer's disciples had not...more
Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) was an English philosopher, sociologist, and prominent classical liberal political theorist of the Victorian era.
Spencer developed an all-embracing conception of evolution as the progressive development of the physical world, biological organisms, the human mind, and human culture and societies. As a polymath, he contributed to a wide range of subjects, including ethics, religion, anthropology, economics, political theory, philosophy, biology, sociology, and psychology. During his lifetime he achieved tremendous authority, mainly in English-speaking academia. In 1902 he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.[1] Indeed, in the United Kingdom and the United States at "one time Spencer's disciples had not blushed to compare him with Aristotle!"[2]
He is best known for coining the concept "survival of the fittest", which he did in Principles of Biology (1864), after reading Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species.[3] This term strongly suggests natural selection, yet as Spencer extended evolution into realms of sociology and ethics, he also made use of Lamarckism.
Spencer is the author of "System of Synthetic Philosophy" in ten volumes, which discusses the principles of physolosophy, biology, psychology, sociology and ethics.(less)
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