Changing Reputations and Interpretations in the History of Political Thought: J.S. Mill

Abstract

Students of political thought generally focus on the context in which the writer produced his or her work or on the present philosophical or political importance of the text. A neglected area is the reception of the work by contemporaries and the subsequent reputation which the writer enjoyed, both in terms of philosophical coherence and political acceptability. This article looks at the changes in Mill's public image and in the philosophical evaluation given him by commentators from his own day to the present.