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Mill and the Gorgias

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 July 2015

DAVID A. NORDQUEST
DAVID A. NORDQUEST*
Affiliation:
Gannon Universitynordques001@gannon.edu
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Abstract

John Stuart Mill thought himself more indebted to Plato for his mental culture than to any other author. A study of his Gorgias translation and notes shows that arguments in On Liberty and Utilitarianism for individuality, freedom of discussion and the superiority of higher pleasures were probably shaped by that dialogue.

Type
Research Article
Information
Utilitas , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , March 2016 , pp. 19 - 27
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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References

1 Mill, John Stuart, The Early Draft of John Stuart Mill's Autobiography, Autobiography and Literary Essays, Collected Works [hereafter CW], ed. Robson, J. M. (Toronto, 1963), vol. 1, p. 24Google Scholar.

2 Mill, Autobiography, pp. 24–5. Irwin, T. H., ‘Mill and the Classical World’, The Cambridge Companion to Mill, ed. Skorupski, John (New York, 1998), pp. 423–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Whedbee, Karen E., ‘An English Plato: J. S. Mill's Gorgias’, Rhetoric Society Quarterly 37.4 (2007), pp. 19–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Loizides, Antis, John Stuart Mill's Platonic Heritage: Happiness through Character (Plymouth, 2013)Google Scholar.

3 Mill, Autobiography, p. 25; Earlier Letters, CW, vol. 12, p. 8.

4 Mill, Later Letters, CW, vol. 16, p. 1061.

5 Mill, Autobiography, p. 115.

6 Mill, Gorgias, CW, vol. 11, p. 149; Grote's Plato, CW, vol. 11, p. 416.

7 Mill, Grote's Plato, pp. 415–416; Gorgias, p. 97.

8 Mill, Grote's Plato, p. 415.

9 Mill, Gorgias, p. 150.

10 Mill, Gorgias, p. 150.

11 Mill, Grote's Plato, p. 416.

12 Mill, Gorgias, p. 150.

13 This is not to deny the influence of other dialogues. Book 9 of the Republic, for example, includes an extended discussion of how pleasures may be distinguished and judged.

14 Mill, On Liberty, CW, vol. 18, p. 265.

15 Mill, Gorgias, p. 127.

16 Mill, Gorgias, pp. 126–7.

17 Mill, On Liberty, p. 263.

18 Mill, On Liberty, p. 263.

19 Mill, Gorgias, pp. 121–2.

20 Mill, On Liberty, p. 268.

21 Mill, On Liberty, p. 232.

22 Mill, Gorgias, p. 137.

23 Mill, Autobiography, p. 25.

24 Mill, Utilitarianism, CW, vol. 10, pp. 211–12.

25 Mill, Gorgias, p. 128.

26 Mill, Gorgias, pp. 131, 135.

27 Mill, Gorgias, p. 136.

28 Mill, Gorgias, p. 132.

29 Mill, Gorgias, p. 132.

30 Mill, Gorgias, p. 150.

31 Mill, Utilitarianism, p. 212.

32 Mill, Utilitarianism, p. 228.

33 Mill, Gorgias, p. 97.

34 Mill, Utilitarianism, p. 212.

35 Mill, Utilitarianism, p. 216.

36 Mill, Utilitarianism, p. 211.

37 Mill, Utilitarianism, p. 212.

38 Mill, Utilitarianism, p. 214; emphasis added.

39 Mill, Gorgias, p. 109.

40 Mill, Utilitarianism, p. 228.

41 To my late parents, Paul and Elizabeth Nordquest, I owe, along with so much else, my first and best introduction to the ‘sense of dignity’. I am grateful, too, to the Utilitas readers of the manuscript for their valuable suggestions for its revision.