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Herbert Spencer's Agnosticism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Timothy Fitzgerald
Affiliation:
London

Extract

In First Principles, Spencer attempted to construct a metaphysical system which synthesized all available knowledge into a single world-view. One major aspect of his task was to integrate Religion and Science. However, there is no single metaphysical system or structure unifying Spencer's thought, and my aim in this article is to identify the various different models of reality which he confuses. Spencer inherited these different, over-arching conceptions from his own European philosophical tradition, and with them came certain inherent metaphysical problems which he wished to solve.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987

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References

page 477 note 1 See Francis, M., The Origins of the Spencerian Philosophy and the New Reformation, Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge, 1973.Google Scholar

page 477 note 2 See Spencer, H., First Principles, 5th edn., London and Edinburgh, 1887, p. xiii.Google Scholar

page 477 note 3 For a more detailed analysis see Fitzgerald, T., Philosophical Issues in Agnosticism Since Hume and Kant, Ph.D. thesis, London, 1983.Google Scholar

page 479 note 1 First Principles, p. 552.Google Scholar

page 479 note 2 Ibid. p. 160.

page 480 note 1 Ibid. p. 69.

page 480 note 2 Ibid. p. 69.

page 480 note 3 Ibid. p. 81.

page 480 note 4 Ibid. p. 81.

page 480 note 5 Ibid. p. 88.

page 480 note 6 Ibid. p. 88.

page 480 note 7 Ibid. p. 88.

page 480 note 8 Ibid. p. 99.

page 481 note 1 Ibid. p. 108.

page 481 note 2 Ibid. p. 110.

page 481 note 3 Ibid. p. 167.

page 481 note 4 See Spencer, H. and Harrison, F., The Nature and Reality of Religion: A Controversy, New York, 1885, p. 65.Google Scholar

page 481 note 5 First Principles, p. 133.

page 481 note 6 Ibid. p. 113.

page 482 note 1 Ibid. p. 552.

page 482 note 2 Ibid. pp. 111–13.

page 482 note 3 Ibid. p. 558.

page 482 note 4 Ibid. p. 20.

page 482 note 5 Ibid. p. 68, 103.

page 482 note 6 Ibid. p. 16/17.

page 483 note 1 Ibid. p. 43.

page 483 note 21 Ibid. p. 13.

page 483 note 3 Ibid. p. 13.

page 483 note 4 Ibid. pp. 41–5, 108/9.

page 484 note 1 See Spencer, H., ‘The Universal Postulate’, Westminster Review, IV (1853), 513–50;Google Scholar also see ‘Hamilton v Mill’, Fortnightly Review, 1, (1865), 531–50.

page 484 note 2 First Principles, pp. 47, 50–4, 68.

page 484 note 3 Ibid. pp. 50–4.

page 484 note 4 Ibid. p. 54.

page 484 note 5 Ibid. p. 167.

page 485 note 1 Ibid. p. 169.

page 485 note 2 See, for instance, p. 171.

page 485 note 3 Ibid. p. 171.

page 485 note 4 Ibid. p. 84.

page 485 note 5 Ibid. p. 179.

page 485 note 6 Spencer, H., ‘The Universal Postulate’, Westminster Review, IV (1853), 513–50.Google Scholar

page 486 note 1 See Fitzgerald, T., Philosophical Issues in Agnosticism since Hume and Kant, Ph.D. thesis, London, 1983, p. 269 passim.Google Scholar

page 486 note 2 First Principles, p. 541

page 486 note 3 Quoted in Greene, W. B., The Facts of Consciousness and the Philosophy of H. Spencer (Boston, 1871), p. 7.Google Scholar

page 486 note 4 Universal Postulate, p. 521.

page 486 note 5 First Principles, pp. 64/5.

page 487 note 1 Spencer, H., Principles of Psychology, vol. 1, 2nd edn. (London and Edinburgh, 1878), p. 98 passim.Google Scholar

page 487 note 2 Ibid. p. 129.

page 487 note 3 Ibid. p. 140.

page 487 note 4 Ibid. p. 98.

page 487 note 5 Ibid. p. 98.

page 488 note 1 This reading of Spencer is born out by his description of the complicated process of inference necessary to establish “the connection between nervous action and feeling”, Ibid. p. 100.

page 488 note 2 Ibid. p. 157.

page 488 note 3 Ibid. p. 399.

page 488 note 4 Ibid. pp. 400/1.

page 488 note 5 Ibid. pp. 402/3.

page 490 note 1 Ibid. p. 396.

page 491 note 1 First Principles, p. 559.