发现个体性——约翰·密尔的“精神危机”及其克服

Discover Individuality:John Mill’s“Mental Crisis”and Its Overcoming

在19世纪英国思想家约翰·密尔思想形成的历程中,他20岁时所发生的“精神危机”是一个具有思想转折性意义的事件,对此,密尔自己也坦然承认,他在晚年写的《自传》中详细叙述了这场“精神危机”的情况。本文借助密尔的文本,注重考察密尔如何在理性的反思中,通过精神上的“弑父”,走出了“精神危机”,并提出了“个体性”思想,这一思想在后来的《论自由》一书中得到了深化和系统性表达。因此,对密尔这场“精神危机”的探讨,不仅将有助于理解他的“个体性”思想的形成,而且也会深化我们对《论自由》这部经典性著作的理解。

At the age of 20,John S.Mill,the nineteenth-century British thinker,experienced a“mental crisis”which turned out to be a transition point in the formation of his thought.This episode was openly admitted by Mill himself and was closely described in his Autobiography written during his later years.Based on this and Mill’s other texts,this essay seeks to explain how he overcame the crisis through rational reflections and a mental effort to commit“patricide”,as well as how he first developed the idea of“individuality”which was to be more profoundly and systematically elaborated later in On Liberty.Hence,focusing on Mill’s“mental crisis”will help to shed light on the formation of his thought concerning“individuality”,and is also conducive to a fuller understanding of the classical texts of On Liberty.