名人小故事哲学思想家13：John Stuart Mill 约翰·斯图尔特·穆勒

John Stuart Mill

约翰·斯图尔特·穆勒

John Stuart Mill was born on 20 May, 1806 in London. His father was the influential radical thinker James Mill. In his Autobiography, Mill gives one of the most famous accounts of a childhood, certainly of a philosopher’s childhood. Interpretations have differed radically but everyone, including Mill, agrees that he had an extraordinary childhood, and that it shaped his later life as a thinker. Essentially, Mill tells us how his father educated him at home from an extremely early age until he went off to work in his father’s office at the age of 18. John Stuart Mill did not go to school or university. Instead his father established for him a unique experiment in education. At age three, Mill was learning ancient Greek and arithmetic Soon he was being taken by his father on walks across the fields and reciting the evidence of his day’s reading.

约翰·斯图尔特·穆勒于1806年5月20日出生于伦敦。他的父亲是当时非常有影响的激进主义思想家詹姆斯·穆勒。在穆勒《自传》一书中，有一段非常著名的、对童年生活的描述，当然，那是一个哲学家的童年。尽管对这本书的评论和解释有着一些截然不同的版本，但包括穆勒在内，所有的人都认为他有一个与众不同的童年，这也对他日后成为一个思想家有很大影响。 很重要的一点是，穆勒给我们讲述了他父亲是如何教育他的，从很小的时候在家中受教育直到18岁他到父亲的办公室上班。约翰·斯图尔特·穆勒从来没上过中学或大学，都是在父亲独特的教育方式下学习。三岁时他就学习了古希腊语和算术。不久后，父亲带他到田野上散步，并且要求他背诵他一天当中所阅读的文章。

At the age of eight, Mill began Latin, and this part of his life story is a long list of books in different languages. Several of these childhood texts are directly relevant to On Liberty, particularly ancient works of political theory by Plato, Aristotle and Cicero. From the age of twelve, Mill was taught logic, on which, in adult life, he became a leading authority.

八岁时穆勒开始学习拉丁语。他的这段生活就是一长串各种不同语言所写的书籍的清单。童年时期阅读的这些书籍对后期《论自由》的完成有直接影响，尤其是柏拉图、亚里士多德、西塞罗等所写的关于政治理论的古代著作对他影响较大。从12岁起穆勒开始学习逻辑学，长大之后，他成了这方面的权威。

Mill also draws our attention to missing elements in his education, notably the absence of religion, for which he remains grateful. On the other hand, he does look back on a more damaging absence, the lack of affection. For some readers, notably Mill’s friend Carlyle, this is the account of a nightmare childhood. For others, such as the contemporary philosopher Jonathan Riley, the verdict is more mixed, as it seems to have been for Mill himself. Many of his father’s political ideas continue to find expression within On Liberty, but in other ways, as Isaiah Berlin observes, the book can be seen as a reaction against such an upbringing— given its emphasis upon the well-being of the individual and upon the need for people to find their own way of living and thinking.
 

穆勒也将人们的注意力集中到他在教育上缺失的那部分，尤其是宗教部分的缺失，为此穆勒很庆幸。从另一方面讲，他也确实回忆过他童年一种更加有害的缺乏——缺乏爱。对于许多读者，特别是穆勒的朋友凯雷来说，那简直是噩梦般的童年。而对于其他一些人，就像当时的哲学家乔纳森·莱里，他的评价就有点复杂，就像他是穆勒一样。而父亲的政治观点也持续影响着他的写作，在《论自由》中都有所体现。但以赛亚·伯林从另一角度出发，他认为我们可以把这本书看成是穆勒反抗其成长方式的体现——强调个人的幸福生活，强调人们 对于寻找自己的生活和思考方式的需要。