Scientific Language in John Stuart Mill s Social and Political Thought: Images and Legitimacy. Rosario López University of Malaga, Spain

Transcription

1 Concepts and Methods: Democracy, Rhetoric and the Civic Constellation 22 nd World Congress of Political Science, International Political Science Association (IPSA) 8-12 July, 2012, Madrid Scientific Language in John Stuart Mill s Social and Political Thought: Images and Legitimacy Rosario López University of Malaga, Spain rosariols@uma.es Draft outline, work in progress When studying the role natural or experimental sciences play in nineteenth-century British social and political thought, commentators usually consider the impact of evolutionary theory in the study of society. For that reason, a considerable number of studies focus on late nineteenth and early twentieth century Victorian thinkers like L. T. Hobhouse, J. A. Hobson and T. H. Green, although Herbert Spencer and Henry Maine also rank as prominent figures. 1 As a way of enriching these interpretations, my paper examines the link between natural sciences and the study of society and politics in a selection of John Stuart Mill s writings. I think my approach differs from and enriches the abovementioned studies in three ways. First, I examine Mill s thought, rarely considered in depth when dealing 1 To name a few examples: J. W. Burrow, Evolution and Society: A Study in Victorian Social Theory, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1966; R. J. Halliday, Social Darwinism: A Definition, Victorian Studies, 14, 4, 1971, pp ; Peter Dickens, Social Darwinism: Linking Evolutionary Thought to Social Theory, Open University Press, London, 2000; Roger Smith, British Thought on the Relations Between the Natural Sciences and the Humanities, c , in U. Feest (ed.), Historical Perspectives on Erklären and Verstehen, Archimedes, 21, 2010, pp ; R. Creath and J. Maienschein, eds., Biology and Epistemology, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000, see part one; Michael Freeden, Biology, Evolution and Liberal Collectivism, in The New Liberalism : An Ideology of Social Reform, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1986, pp

2 with the topic. For that reason, secondly, instead of the last decades of the nineteenth century my paper discusses the first half, when Darwin s Origin of Species was not yet published (1859). In the third place, along with examining the impact of concept of evolution and organism when describing society, I also consider other linguistic strategies that reinforce the bonds between natural sciences and socio-political theories. Assuming language as a particular rhetoric or idiom, this paper will examine the convergence between the languages of experimental and social sciences in John Stuart Mill s social and political writings. It will be argued that his evocative usage of the natural sciences vocabulary as applied to the study of society served a legitimising purpose: conferring rigour and objectivity on his social research, but also leaving a distinctive imprint on his rhetoric. I I draw inspiration from John Pocock s idea of language as rhetoric or specialised idiom. 2 He does not describe languages in the usual sense of the word, but as a way of speaking and writing which is recognizable, internally consistent, capable of being learned, and sufficiently distinct from others like it to permit us to consider what happens when an expression or a problem migrates, or is translated, out of one such context into another. 3 According to Pocock, a historian of political thought will find out that a number of idioms can co-exist within a single monoglot text. In other words, a debate or text may be written in different idioms. 4 I agree with Pocock when he states that languages are plural, flexible and non-final, 5 although I think the actual practices or strategies through which they interact with each other need further attention. The next part of the paper examines which linguistic devices are involved when two idioms appear together in a single text, or, in Pocock s words, how does it look like when an expression or a problem migrates, or is 2 Languages, rhetorics, idioms, paradigms, modes of utterance: I am not sure it matters terribly which of these terms we prefer : John Pocock, The Reconstruction of Discourse: Towards the Historiography of Political Thought, in Political Thought and History: Essays on Theory and Method, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2009, p Ibid. 4 John Pocock, The Reconstruction of Discourse, p. 78. See also: J. Pocock, Virtue, Commerce, and History, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1985, p John Pocock, The Reconstruction of Discourse, p

3 translated, out of such context into another. In that sense, I will consider the role scientific language plays within Mill s liberal rhetoric and point out its central importance in his account of a science of society. II In 1843 Mill laid the foundations for the science of society in A System of Logic. Following Auguste Comte s Cours de Philosophie Positive, Mill concludes that sociology, by means of the inverse deductive method, should study rationally the different states of society, that is, the state of civilization at any given time. 6 Remarkably, when Mill presents his views, he refers to society as a social organism or social body. It comes out as no surprise that the organism metaphor leads the sociological inquiry, since every living body, including society, has statical and dynamical dimensions. Along with the organic metaphor, a borrowing from the science of mechanics strengthens the analogy between social and natural phenomena. In mechanics, statics studies why bodies remain balanced while dynamics analyses why they change. 7 Therefore, the terms statics and dynamics, until then confined to the language of experimental sciences, take an active part within the social sciences, thus becoming social statics and social dynamics, sociology s two main branches. 8 Hence, it makes sense to talk about the progress or evolution of human affairs as the dynamics of society. Mill s 1865 general appraisal of Comtean positivism makes this point clearer: social phenomena, like all others, present two aspects, the statical, and the dynamical. 6 John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic (1843), in The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, gen. ed. John M. Robson, Toronto and London, University of Toronto Press & Routledge and Kegan Paul, , 33 vols. Hereafter CW, vol. VIII, p See Samuel Johnson and John Walker, A Dictionary of the English Language, London, William Pickering, Chancery Lane, George Cowie and Co. Poultry, 1828; Samuel Johnson, Johnson s Dictionary, Boston, Charles J. Hendee, 1836; Samuel Johnson and Austin Nuttall, Johnson s Dictionary of English Language, London, Routledge, 1856; James Henry Murray, ed., Johnson s Dictionary, London and New York, George Routledge and Sons, Mill elaborates on the idea of society as split into two dimensions in a significant number of his writings from 1840 to See for example John Stuart Mill, Coleridge (1840), CW, vol. X, pp ; Guizot s Essays and Lectures on History (1845), CW, vol. XX, pp ; Principles of Political Economy (1848), CW, vol. III, p. 705; On Liberty (1859), CW, vol. XVIII, p. 253; Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform (1859), CW, vol. XIX, p. 314; Considerations on Representative Government (1861), CW, vol. XIX, p. 387; Inaugural Address Delivered to the University of St. Andrews (1867), CW, vol. XXI, p

4 [ ] The dynamical aspect is that of social progress. [ ] The dynamics studies the laws of its evolution. 9 Scientific metaphors help Mill argue for a science of society in his System of Logic. When explaining the conditions of stability in political society, he describes nationality as a principle of cohesion. 10 In 1848, the first sense of the term cohesion refers to a general scientific law that implies an attraction by which particles hold together, though a figurative sense exists as the second meaning of the word. 11 The term is first rooted in science and only later is used as a metaphor referring to society, and so it is presented as social cohesion. Nationality is, according to Mill, the force whereby individuals belong to society, just as particles or atoms shape bodies. Mill s usage of the term consensus serves as a similar example, although now he picks out the term from physiology. Mill claims that every social phenomenon influences each other, 12 establishing an analogy with the organs and functions of the physical frame of man. 13 There is a connection among body parts as well as among the different parts of society, that is, there is a consensus. However, it is worth noting that until then the term had chiefly been used in biology. 14 III As we have seen, Mill does not borrow consistently a group of terms from a single scientific discipline. Images come generally from biology and physics, but also from mathematics and astronomy, which means Mill is less concerned with internal coherence than he is with enhancing the prospects of sociology. Mill s adoptions support his argument for a new science while conferring it rigour and objectivity. In 9 Auguste Comte and Positivism (1865), CW, vol. X, p The third essential condition of stability in political society, is a strong and active principle of cohesion among the members of the same community or state : A System of Logic (1843), CW, vol. VIII p Cohesion: The act whereby the atoms or primary corpuscles of bodies are connected together so as to form sensible masses. Figuratively, cohesion signifies the state of union or inseparability both of the particles of the matter, and other things : James Barclay, Barclay s Universal Dictionary, London, London Virtue & Co, 1813 and 1848 edition, p. 177 and p.192 respectively. 12 Whatever affects [ ] any one element of the social state, affects through it all the other elements : A System of Logic, CW, p Ibid. 14 Donald Levine points this out regarding Comte s usage of the term. D. Levine, The Organism Metaphor in Sociology, Social Research, 62, 2, 1995, pp

5 addition, he uses methods and analytic tools from the natural sciences to study society (the inverse deductive method). Generally speaking, Mill is representing the facts of one sort (social) as if they belonged to some other sort (nature), which is one way of describing what metaphorical thinking is about. 15 However, figurative language is not something purely decorative that belittles philosophers. On the contrary, it plays a constitutive role in theorising. 16 More precisely, bringing into play Max Black s interaction view of metaphors, Mill s metaphors reorganise the object he describes (society) emphasising some features and deemphasising some others. By describing society as if it were a natural phenomena Mill highlights its regularity and predictability and argues for the possibility of a wellgrounded knowledge of society. In short, evoking what Black calls a system of associated commonplaces. 17 A study of John Stuart Mill s usage of experimental sciences language illustrates how a number of languages are present in a text, but also to what extent an author can use different idioms with a legitimising purpose. Languages, following Pocock, constrain our thoughts and narrow what it is possible to say within a given language. Skinner, however, thinks of language as a resource to be deployed, sometimes as a weapon. 18 I think my paper offers an instance of both perspectives, assuming they are not incompatible. A close examination of Mill s rhetoric, as a pivotal figure of liberalism, highlights the significant role that the experimental sciences imaginary plays in the conceptual building of liberalism. The idea of society as an organism appears, though in different 15 C. M. Turbayne, The Myth of Metaphor, Michigan, University of South Carolina Press, 1970, p Maasen argues for the constitutive role of metaphors in scientific theorising, but I think the claim may be extended to any kind of theoretical activity in which we need to gain access to a problem. Sabine Maasen, Who is afraid of metaphors?, in Sabine Maasen, Peter Weingart and Everett Mendelsohn, eds., Biology as Society, Society as Biology: Metaphors, Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic, 2002, pp Max Black, Metaphor, in Mark Johnson, ed., Philosophical Perspectives on Metaphor, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1985, pp Q. Skinner makes this point: Pocock stresses the power of language to constrain our thoughts, whereas I tend to think of language at least as much as a resource to be deployed : Q. Skinner, Interview by Petri Koikkalainen and Sami Syrjämäki, Finnish Yearbook of Political Thought, 6, 2002, p. 49. See also J. Fernández Sebastián, Intellectual History, Liberty and Republicanism: An Interview with Quentin Skinner, Contributions to the History of Concepts, 3, 2007, p. 107; Quentin Skinner, Visions of Politics, vol I: Regarding Method, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002, p. 7. 5

6 degrees, in the writings of Herbert Spencer, 19 but also among the so-called new liberals, L. T. Hobhouse and J. A. Hobson Walter M. Simon, Herbert Spencer and the Social Organism, Journal of the History of Ideas, 21, 2, 1960, pp Stefan Collini, Liberalism and Sociology: L. T. Hobhouse and Political Argument in England , Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1979, pp ; Michael Freeden, Ideologies and Political Theory: A Conceptual Approach, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1996, pp The label New Liberalism was used at that time to refer to Hobhouse s and Hobson s political thought. See S. Collini, Liberalism and Sociology, p. 4. 6