Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-04T10:32:53.457Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 3 - George Grote and Historismus

from Part II - Historicism and Historiography

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2021

Callum Barrell
Affiliation:
New College of the Humanities
Get access

Summary

George Grote developed aspects of Bentham’s and James Mill’s philosophy into an endorsement of German Historismus, the fruits of which can be seen in his landmark History of Greece (1846–1856). While his historiography is associated more with James Mill than Bentham, Barrell argues that his conception of philosophical history more closely resembled Bentham’s science historique than James’s scale of civilisations, and that his attraction to German Historismus can be explained, at least partly, by his Benthamite logic; like Bentham, he stressed the past’s particularity and distinctness, in pursuit of which he embraced the hermeneutic, philological, and critical strands of Historismus. Greece’s ‘peculiarity’ provided opportunities for reflection without resorting to a vacuous presentism. His examination in the history of ‘democratical sentiment’ and ‘constitutional morality’ illustrated modern society’s comparative selfishness and the difficulty of reproducing those sentiments ex nihilo. The chapter ends by considering the ways in which J. S. Mill drew on these arguments to reconcile modern individuality with extensive civic duties.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • George Grote and Historismus
  • Callum Barrell
  • Book: History and Historiography in Classical Utilitarianism, 1800–1865
  • Online publication: 24 September 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009004718.004
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • George Grote and Historismus
  • Callum Barrell
  • Book: History and Historiography in Classical Utilitarianism, 1800–1865
  • Online publication: 24 September 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009004718.004
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • George Grote and Historismus
  • Callum Barrell
  • Book: History and Historiography in Classical Utilitarianism, 1800–1865
  • Online publication: 24 September 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009004718.004
Available formats
×