Self-Development and the Liberal State: The Cases of John Stuart Mill and Wilhelm von Humboldt

Review of Politics

Volumn 61, Issue 2, 1999, Pages 251-274

  Vails, Andrew ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 85007620235     PISSN: 00346705     EISSN: 17486858     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0034670500051998     Document Type: Article

References (102)

1. John Stewart Mill, Autobiography of John Stuart Mill (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), pp. 179–180.
2. John W. Burrow, “Editor's Introduction,” The Limits of State Action (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), p. vii.
3. See also Paul R. Sweet, Wilhelm von Humboldt, A Biography. Volume One: 1767-1808 (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1978), “Appendix: The Publication, Reception, and Influence of The Limits of State Action.”
4. Mill, On Liberty, in Three Essays (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), p. 9.
5. Mill, Autobiography, p. 100.
6. Wilhelm von Humboldt, The Limits of State Action (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), p. 17.
7. Mill, On Liberty, p. 2;
8. Humboldt, Limits, p. 51.
9. Mill, On Liberty, p. 74.
10. On Liberty, p. 73.
11. On Liberty, p. 42.
12. On Liberty, p. 74.
13. Humboldt, Limits, pp. 12–13.
14. Limits, p. 79.
15. Limits, pp. 19, 17.
16. Mill, On Liberty, p. 78.
17. Burrow, “Introduction,” p. xix.
18. Humboldt, Limits, p. 98.
19. Mill, On Liberty, p. 93.
20. Gertrude Himmelfarb, On Liberty and Liberalism: The Case of John Stuart Mill (San Francisco: Institute for Contemporary Studies, 1990), p. 61.
21. Humboldt, Limits, p. 28.
22. Ursula Vogel, “Liberty is Beautiful: von Humboldt's Gift to Liberalism,” History of Political Thought 3 (1982): 96.
23. Wendy Donner, The Liberal Self: John Stuart Mill's Moral and Political Philosophy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991), p. 139.
24. Mill, “Utilitarianism,” Mill and Jeremy Bentham, Utilitarianism and Other Essays, ed. Alan Ryan (London: Penguin Press, 1987), p. 281.
25. Mill, On Liberty, p. 83.
26. David O. Brink, “Mill's Deliberative Utilitarianism,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 21 (1992): 79.
27. Humboldt, Limits, p. 23.
28. For a similar interpretation, see Burrows, “Introduction,” p. xxxviii.
29. Humboldt, Limits, pp. 23–24.
30. Limits, p. 24.
31. Limits, p. 23.
32. Limits, pp. 32–33.
33. Limits, p. 26.
34. Limits, p. 25.
35. Limits, p. 24.
36. Limits, p. 26.
37. Limits, p. 39;
38. see David Sorkin, “Wilhelm von Humboldt: The Theory and Practice of Self-Formation (Bildung), 1791-1810” Journal of the History of Ideas 44 (1983): 58.
39. Humboldt, Limits, p. 29.
40. Limits, p. 35.
41. Limits
42. Mill, On Liberty, pp. 140–141.
43. Mill, Principles of Political Economy (London: Penguin, 1985), pp. 345-346.
44. Principles of Political Economy, p. 334.
45. Vogel, “Liberty is Beautiful,” p. 79.
46. Walter H. Bruford, The German Tradition of Self-Cultivation: Bildung from Humboldt to Thomas Mann (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), p. 23.
47. Frederick C. Beiser, Enlightenment, Revolution, and Romanticism: The Genesis of German Political Thought, 179(h-1800 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), p. 136.
48. This is the dominant, though not unanimous, view among interpreters of Humboldt. For a dissenting account, see Sweet, “Young Wilhelm von Humboldt's Writings (1789-93) Reconsidered,” Journal of the History of Ideas 34 (1973).
49. Humboldt, Limits, p. 34.
50. Limits
51. Limits, p. 35.
52. For a contrary view, see Sorkin, “Wilhelm von Humboldt,” pp. 66–69, who briefly argues that there is a “civic” dimension to Humboldt's account of Bildung. It is true that Humboldt states that the developed individual should “attach himself to the State” (Limits, p. 52), but this statement appears in the context of an argument that the state should play no positive role in the individual's development. The point is that the individual should approach the state only after he has developed, to avoid being influenced by it.
53. Mill, Considerations on Representative Government, in Three Essays, pp. 197–198.
54. Mill, Principles, pp. 313–314.
55. Principles, p. 276.
56. Humboldt, Limits, p. 42.
57. Limits
58. Limits
59. Limits
60. Limits, p. 43.
61. Limits
62. Limits, pp. 114-119.
63. Limits, p. 107.
64. Limits, p. 108.
65. Reinhold Aris, History of Political Thought in Germany from 1789 to 1815 (London: Allen and Unwin, 1936), p. 153.
66. Humboldt, Limits, p. 89.
67. Limits, p. 89.
68. Limits, p. 94.
69. Limits, p. 104.
70. Limits
71. Limits, p. 105.
72. Mill, On Liberty, pp. 16–17; see also p. 96.
73. Dormer, Liberal Self, p. 163.
74. Mill, Principles, p. 314.
75. Principles, pp. 310–311, 332.
76. Mill, On Liberty, p. 14.
77. Mill, Principles, pp. 145-146.
78. Mill, Autobiography, p. 136.
79. Mill, Principles, pp. 146-147.
80. Principles, p. 151.
81. Principles, pp. 147–51.
82. Mill, On Liberty, p. 130.
83. On Liberty, p. 129.
84. On Liberty
85. Mill, Principles, p. 305.
86. Principles, p. 307.
87. Principles, p. 305.
88. Principles, p. 318.
89. Humboldt, Limits, p. 51.
90. Limits, p. 53.
91. Sorkin, “Wilhelm von Humboldt,” pp. 62–63.
92. See also the fuller account in Sweet, Wilhelm von Humboldt, A Biography. Volume 2: 1808-1835 (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1980), chap. 8.
93. Sorkin, “Wilhelm von Humboldt,” p. 63.
94. See Burrow, “Introduction,” p. ix.
95. “Introduction,”, p. xxxiv.
96. Sweet, “Young Wilhelm von Humboldt's Writings Reconsidered,” p. 477.
97. For two quite different accounts of Humboldt's consistency, see Sorkin, “Wilhelm von Humboldt,” pp. 63–66
98. and Sweet, “Young Wilhelm von Humboldt's Writings Reconsidered,” passim.
99. Humboldt, Limits, pp. 36, 39.
100. Limits, p. 138.
101. Limits, pp. 134–136.
102. Sweet, “Young Wilhelm von Humboldt's Writings Reconsidered,” p. 474.