Person
Herbert Spencer
English philosopher and sociologist (1820–1903); the Victorian thinker who saw society as an “organic” whole and coined “survival of the fittest”.
Biography
Herbert Spencer was born in Derby on 27 April 1820 and died on 8 December 1903. His education owed more to his own efforts than to formal schooling; his father was a teacher. He was one of the best-known thinkers of the Victorian era, and for a time his reputation rivalled Darwin’s.
He built a “synthetic philosophy” that applied the idea of evolution to philosophy, psychology and the study of society: First Principles (1862), Principles of Biology (1864–67) and Principles of Sociology (1876–96) belong to that series. Spencer thought of society as an “organic” whole, but for him the parts were mutually dependent rather than subordinate to the whole. He described social evolution through types such as militant and industrial societies.
The phrase “survival of the fittest” was coined by Spencer, not Darwin. Even so, the author of the SEP entry argues that it is wrong to call him a coarse social Darwinist. Durkheim was inspired by Spencer’s organic analogy and functional analysis, but rejected the utilitarian view that society begins when individuals come together.
In this course
Stands at one end of the question “is society an organism?” in Roots of Social Thought.