I want to know about the life history of james mill and his work in psychology.

-- Asma faiz (mushtaqnoon@html.com), April 09, 2002

Answers

L. Zusne's Biographical Dictionary of Psychology says the following:

MILL, JAMES
English Historian, Economist, and Philosopher
Born: Northwater Bridge, Angus, Scotland, April 6, 1773
Died: London, June 23, 1836
Education: Studied theology, philosophy, the classics, at University of Edinburgh from 1790; licensed as preacher in 1798
Positions: Editorial work, writing, with the East India Company, from 1819

Mill's greatest achievement was the writing of The History of British India (1818); in philosophy he subscribed to the ideas of the utilitarian Jeremy Bentham. His historical, political, and economic works reflect the principles of utilitarianism and philosophical radicalism. Mill's psychology, which is contained in his 1829 volume Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind, also served the cause of utilitarianism. The importance of this work to psychology lies in that in it Mill developed further the doctrine of associationism that began with Hartley". According to Mill there are only two kinds of mental contents, sensations and ideas. The latter remain when the former are removed. Although sensation is primary, association occurs only among ideas. The association of two ideas, one of which is a word, gives the word its meaning (the associative theory of meaning). The association of ideas obeys one principle only, namely, contiguity, successive or simultaneous. The strength of an association is determined by its frequency and vividness. Association cements previous experiences together, so complex ideas contain all of the component simpler ideas, the most complex idea being that of "everything." Even though complex ideas may appear to be simple because the component ideas fuse together, analysis may still reveal their original structure. Mill's conception of association as a mechanical, non-creative, nonsynthesizing process marked the end of the logical development of a line of thinking--its culminating point and dead end at the same time.

Biographies. A. Bain, James Mill: A Biography, 1967; G. S. Bower, Hartley and James Mill, 1881; E. Halevy, Encycl. Sec. Sci., 1933, 1O, 480-481; DNB, 13; EB, 15; EP, 5.

-- Christopher Green (christo@yorku.ca), April 10, 2002.

There is an excellent, lengthy chapter on "The Millean Backgrounds" (James Mill and John Stuart Mill) in D. B. Klein, A History of Scientific Psychology: Its Origins and Philosophical Backgrounds (Basic Books, 1970). Most encyclopedias of psychology will also have an article on Mill.

-- Hendrika Vande Kemp (hendrika@earthlink.net), April 09, 2002.