ABSTRACT

Herbert Spencer: Legacies explores and assesses the impact of the ideas and work of the great Victorian polymath Herbert Spencer across a wide range of disciplines. In the course of the essays a significant re-evaluation of his influence on Victorian and Edwardian thought is provided. Spencer's contribution to the fields of sociology, anthropology, psychology, biology and ecology are considered, alongside his influence on key figures in science and philosophy.

The book brings together scholars from a wide range of disciplines to explore Spencer's nuanced and complex ideas and will be invaluable for historians of science and ideas, and all those interested in the intellectual culture of the late Victorian and Edwardian period.

Contributors: Peter J. Bowler, James Elwick, Mark Francis, Bernard Lightman, Chris Renwick, Vanessa L. Ryan, John Skorupski, Michael W. Taylor, Stephen Tomlinson, and Jonathan H. Turner

chapter 1|15 pages

Introduction

chapter 2|24 pages

The Method of Nature

Herbert Spencer and the education of the adaptive mind

chapter 3|20 pages

Herbert Spencer

Nineteenth-century politics and twentieth-century individualism

chapter 5|22 pages

Containing Multitudes

Herbert Spencer, organisms social and orders of individuality

chapter 7|21 pages

Spencer and the Moral Philosophers

Mill, Sidgwick, Moore

chapter 8|30 pages

The Problem with Star Dust

Spencer's psychology and William James

chapter 9|19 pages

Spencer, Cognition, Fiction

chapter 10|19 pages

Herbert Spencer and Lamarckism

chapter 11|23 pages

Spencer's British Disciples