/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.19569355]

has anyone read this dudes bio before? WTF
>Mill was a notably precocious child. He describes his education in his autobiography. At the age of three he was taught Greek.[18] By the age of eight, he had read Aesop's Fables, Xenophon's Anabasis,[18] and the whole of Herodotus,[18] and was acquainted with Lucian, Diogenes Laërtius, Isocrates and six dialogues of Plato.[18] He had also read a great deal of history in English and had been taught arithmetic, physics and astronomy.

>At the age of eight, Mill began studying Latin, the works of Euclid, and algebra, and was appointed schoolmaster to the younger children of the family. His main reading was still history, but he went through all the commonly taught Latin and Greek authors and by the age of ten could read Plato and Demosthenes with ease. His father also thought that it was important for Mill to study and compose poetry. One of his earliest poetic compositions was a continuation of the Iliad. In his spare time he also enjoyed reading about natural sciences and popular novels, such as Don Quixote and Robinson Crusoe.

[Anonymous No.19569361]

>>19569355
Imagine all that work only to settle on a philosophy as retarded as utilitarianism.
Truly, no nurture can beat nature.

[Anonymous No.19569406]

he's a huge blackpill honestly, if you just read what his childhood was like you'd expect he'd be the genius of the age or something, it reads like an anime background story of a super intelligent person
instead he was just John Stuart Mill, an intellect for sure but not a God tier intellect, not a Plato, Kant, Newton

[Anonymous No.19569426]

>>19569406
i would put him above newton

[Anonymous No.19569435]

Mill is a pretty sad story. He's the result of the two biggest autists in history—Jeremy Bentham and James Mill—experimenting to see if they could create a prodigy. And in a way they did, but it fucked up Mill psychologically and he resented his father and Bentham for his entire life. Then had a mental breakdown because he viewed himself as a 'reasoning machine' with no emotions and essentially lacking a soul. I'm not sure if this was Mill or some other writer, but there is an anecdote that he once proposed to a women he fancied and got laughed out of the room.
I guess it's lucky he found his eventual wife and lived somewhat happily in his mature years. The mere thought of being under the control of Bentham makes me shiver.

[Anonymous No.19569440]

>>19569355
>He describes his education in his autobiography.
hmm

[Anonymous No.19569459]

>>19569435
no this makes sense, i finished reading his bio and it went into how enraptured his wife made him, and then he started to convert to social causes and the women spirit, advocating for more womens rights and all out saying it was her voice that found itself in my writing in later years. it definitely looks like he found a piece that struck itself into him

[Anonymous No.19569486]

>>19569355
John von Neumann mogs him, though.
>When he was six years old, he could divide two eight-digit numbers in his head and could converse in Ancient Greek. When the six-year-old von Neumann caught his mother staring aimlessly, he asked her, "What are you calculating?"
>Von Neumann's father believed that knowledge of languages other than their native Hungarian was essential, so the children were tutored in English, French, German and Italian. By the age of eight, von Neumann was familiar with differential and integral calculus, but he was particularly interested in history. He read his way through Wilhelm Oncken's 46-volume world history series [in German], Allgemeine Geschichte in Einzeldarstellungen (General History in Monographs).
>By the age of 19, von Neumann had published two major mathematical papers, the second of which gave the modern definition of ordinal numbers, which superseded Georg Cantor's definition.
>By the end of 1927 [at age 24], von Neumann had published 12 major papers in mathematics, and by the end of 1929, 32, a rate of nearly one major paper per month. His powers of recall allowed him to quickly memorize the pages of telephone directories, and recite the names, addresses and numbers therein.

[Anonymous No.19569494]

>>19569486
>His powers of recall allowed him to quickly memorize the pages of telephone directories, and recite the names, addresses and numbers therein.
so it's just autism then.

[Anonymous No.19569519]

Accounts like this make me mad... honestly. I'm so worthless man idk my people tell me I'm smart but being above average is nothing if you're not able to produce or further anything relevant.

[Anonymous No.19569532]

>>19569361
Kek.
>>19569426
You're retarded.
>>19569435
Source? From what I read on Wikipedia, he had a breakdown but it went like this:
> Mill went through months of sadness and contemplated suicide at twenty years of age. According to the opening paragraphs of Chapter V of his autobiography, he had asked himself whether the creation of a just society, his life's objective, would actually make him happy. His heart answered "no", and unsurprisingly he lost the happiness of striving towards this objective. Eventually, the poetry of William Wordsworth showed him that beauty generates compassion for others and stimulates joy.[20] With renewed joy he continued to work towards a just society, but with more relish for the journey. He considered this one of the most pivotal shifts in his thinking. In fact, many of the differences between him and his father stemmed from this expanded source of joy.

> I'm not sure if this was Mill or some other writer, but there is an anecdote that he once proposed to a women he fancied and got laughed out of the room.
Yikes, if that were to happen to me I would go full incel instead of feminist, lmao. Interesting anecdote. I wonder if it actually did happen to him or if not to him then to whom it was that it did to if indeed it happened to any philosopher at all; I would very much like to know.

>I guess it's lucky he found his eventual wife and lived somewhat happily in his mature years.
His wife looks very pretty in this painting. Supposedly it was her who convinced him to become a feminist although some people doubt the extent of her influence:
>Indeed, in his autobiography, Mill claimed Harriet as the joint author of most of the books and articles published under his name. He added "when two persons have their thoughts and speculations completely in common it is of little consequence, in respect of the question of originality, which of them holds the pen". The debate about the nature and extent of her collaboration is ongoing.[26] Few of Mill's friends were permitted to meet her. Thomas and Jane Carlyle, who were allowed to make her acquaintance, did not form a favourable opinion of her abilities. Thomas Carlyle described her as "full of unwise intellect, asking and re-asking stupid questions", while Jane considered her "A peculiarly affected and empty body".[27]

>The mere thought of being under the control of Bentham makes me shiver.
YOU CAN NOT ESCAPE THE PANOPTICON.
>>19569440
Cope.

[Anonymous No.19569552]

>>19569532

[Anonymous No.19569574]

>>19569355
I read it but I'm not a child to be impressed by dick measuring education. He got depressed because of it at 20 and started reading poetry and only around 40 he's started publishing his best works which are good but not on the same level as the greats. He would've probably ended up in a similar position if he enjoyed his childhood instead and started reading more seriously when he was older like Plato suggested people should do.

[Anonymous No.19569602]

>>19569552
kek.

[Anonymous No.19569820]

I read things like this, and I feel so intellectually malnourished. Thinking about it makes me quite sad.