John Stuart Mill’s classical phenomenalism

Abstract

This paper examines the phenomenalism of John Stuart Mill. The analysis of the theory includes consideration of the historical context of the creation of this doctrine. This doc­trine was created in a debate with philosophers whom Mill associated with the intuitive school and in particular with W. Hamilton. It is argued that for Mill the establishment of phenomenalism was in many ways a political project. Then, the author traces the influ­ence that Berkeley and Hartley had on Mill. The relativity of human knowledge and asso­ciationism are two main elements of Mill’s theory. Specific elements of Berkeley’s imma­terialism are given, with which Mill agrees and elements that Mill considers unsuccess­ful. The following are the laws of association of ideas recognized by Mill. After that, the author analyzes Mill’s understanding of matter. Matter is understood as a permanent possibility of sensations. The main arguments in favor of this theory are analyzed. Some of these arguments are criticized. The similarities in Mill’s approach with Hume’s understanding of reality are pointed out. Changes are traced between the presentation of the theory in the 1865 edition and in the 1867 edition. The author also demonstrates the simi­larity between Mill’s theory and the XX century phenomenalism. The phenomenalists of the XX century, like Mill, sought to translate statements about material objects into dispositional statements. The difficulties of interpreting the essence of possible sensations are considered. Further, the main problems arising by the adoption of this theory are ana­lyzed. These difficulties are associated with the acceptance of only dispositions as the fun­damental basis of reality, and from Berkeley Mill also gets the problem of proving the ex­istence of other consciousnesses. The author gives attempts to solve these difficulties from the perspective of Mill’s theory.