THIRD PILLAR - Portal για την Φιλοσοφία

Athena's Temple

Athena's Temple
ΑΕΙΦΩΤΟΣ ΛΥΧΝΟΣ

Search This Blog

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Herbert Spencer - Twilight Club

Herbert Spencer (27 April 1820 – 8 December 1903) was an English philosopher, biologist, sociologist, and prominent classical liberal political theorist of the Victorian era.
Spencer developed an all-embracing conception of evolution as the progressive development of the physical world, biological organisms, the human mind, and human culture and societies. As a polymath, he contributed to a wide range of subjects, including ethics, religion, anthropology, economics, political theory, philosophy, biology, sociology, and psychology. During his lifetime he achieved tremendous authority, mainly in English-speaking academia. In 1902 he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.Indeed, in the United Kingdom and the United States at "one time Spencer's disciples had not blushed to compare him with Aristotle!"
He is best known for coining the concept "survival of the fittest", which he did in Principles of Biology (1864), after reading Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species. This term strongly suggests natural selection, yet as Spencer extended evolution into realms of sociology and ethics, he also made use of Lamarckism.

The Twilight Club is an organization which was founded by Charles Wingate in the late 19th century with the intention of countering the moral decline of society by bolstering spiritual and ethical awareness. The Twilight Club was inspired by the British philosopher Herbert Spencer. Although granted honorary membership, in a letter to the Twilight Club, Spencer denied credit for the group. The name of the club refers not only to the fact that their meetings were held at the twilight of the day, but also to the evening twilight of the 19th century and the dawn of the 20th century. Their stated purpose was that of ethical and cultural renewal of their world.

No comments: