Philosophical works of Leslie Stephen
5 total works
These three volumes are mainly devoted to Bentham, James Mill, and John Stuart Mill. In the book the author argues that the utilitarians, were social reformers first and "philosophers" second - if at all. Volume One consists largely of a catalogue of the social evils that provided Bentham with his problem and his stimulus. Failure to get his plans for legal reform adopted led him slowly to the realization that the ruling classes did not always desire "the greatest happiness of the greatest number". This in turn propelled him into political radicalism. In Volume Two there is an extended discussion of the central problems of the new science of political economy by Malthus and Ricardo, which provided the essential framework for much of James Mill's thought. In Volume Three it is shown that pure philosophical problems, such as those treated in J.S.Mill's "Logic", are not entirely divorced from social and political issues. The history of philosophy, the author argues is not an isolated domain governed by the unfolding of a timeless inner logic but rather an integral part of the history of humanity.
This volume is a collection of Leslie Stephen's essays, previously published in various magazines and reviews, on the subject of the loss of credibility of theology and the question of how we should react to its demise. In the first essay "An Apology for Agnosticism" Stephen argues from the contradictory utterances of those who profess to be in possession of theological knowledge to the conclusion that the "mysteries" are and will remain beyond our ken. In "The Scepticism of Believers" Stephen turns the arguments of the theologians against themselves - a writer like Mansel, for example, is, he insists, just a sceptic in disguise. The next essay, "Dreams and Realities", likens the whole fabric of dogmatic Christianity to a dream, a product of Man's hopes and fantasies rather than of his reason or experience. In Newman's "Theory of Belief" Stephen comes to grips with a worthy adversary, perhaps the ablest of the contemporary Christian apologists. Newman's position, Stephen admits, is hard to assail, but equally impossible to confirm. "Poisonous Opinions" discusses the question of tolerance, with special reference to the views expressed in Mill's classic "On Liberty".
The collection ends with "The Religion of all Sensible Men", in which Stephen characteristically advocates plain speech in matters of religion, and admits that his agnosticism is never likely to become a popular creed, capable of satisfying the emotional needs of mankind at large.
The collection ends with "The Religion of all Sensible Men", in which Stephen characteristically advocates plain speech in matters of religion, and admits that his agnosticism is never likely to become a popular creed, capable of satisfying the emotional needs of mankind at large.
This book provides an introduction to the life and thought of Thomas Hobbes. Chapter one is a short biography, dealing with the Civil War, Hobbes' exile in France, his relations with Mersenne, Gassendi, and Descartes, his Erastian views about the Church and his awkward status in the Restoration England of his old age. In chapter two the author gives an account of Hobbes' conception of the physical world, as set out in the neglected treatise "De Corpore". After outlining Hobbes' mechanistic and materialistic conception of Nature in general, the author proceeds in chapter three, to introduce the Hobbist theory of human nature, and gives a partial and qualified defence of Hobbes' universal determinism and psychological egoism. In chapter four the essential problem of political philosophy is posed.
History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century
by Sir Leslie Stephen
Published 1 December 1991
The author argues, in this book, that it was in the 18th century, that theology lost its lofty status as "Queen of the Sciences". Neither metaphysics nor history could provide a credible foundation for the central dogmas of the Christian creed. In these two volumes the author traces some of the causes and consequences of this intellectual crisis. Volume One begins with an extended discussion of the deist controversy - the deists, he shows, successfully undermined the key Christian thesis of a unique historical revelation, and forced apologists for orthodoxy into all manner of shifts and evasions. In Volume Two the author goes on to trace the consequences of the new ideas for moral and political philosophy. The author concludes with a chapter entitled "Characteristics", in which he draws on the works of preachers and poets to provide a mirror of the underlying beliefs and prejudices of the age.
The relevance or otherwise of Evolutionary Biology to Ethics was as controversial in the 1880s as in the 1980s. The crux of Leslie Stephen's book lies in his attempt to explain the moral sentiments or "instincts" of people by reference to their evolutionary origin. He argues that the instincts beneficial to the race will be favoured by the mechanism of natural selection. The distinguishing feature of the work is its thoroughgoing "naturalism" in opposition to theological-based ethical systems (in which conscience is the voice of God, backed by a supernatural "sanction") and Kantian ethics (the moral law self-imposed and binding on all rational beings as such). Stephen insists, with Hume, that Ethics ultimately rests on sentiment, and draws on Darwin to explain the origin of the sentiments in question.