Philosopher
Humboldt was a philosopher and wrote On the Limits of State Action in 1791-2 (though it was not published until 1850, after Humboldt's death), one of the boldest defences of the liberties of the Enlightenment. It influenced John Stuart Mill's essay On Liberty through which von Humboldt's ideas became known in the English-speaking world. Humboldt outlined an early version of what Mill would later call the "harm principle".
The section dealing with education was published in the December 1792 issue of the Berlinische Monatsschrift under the title ‘On public state education’. With this publication, Humboldt took part in the philosophical debate on the direction of national education which was in progress in Germany, as elsewhere after the French Revolution.
Read more about this topic: Wilhelm Von Humboldt
Famous quotes containing the word philosopher:
“Certainly the philosopher of ‘possible worlds’ must take care that his technical apparatus not push him to ask questions whose meaningfulness is not supported by our original intuitions of possibility that gave the apparatus its point.”
—Saul Kripke (b. 1940)
“The philosopher is like a man fasting in the midst of universal intoxication. He alone perceives the illusion of which all creatures are the willing playthings; he is less duped than his neighbor by his own nature. He judges more sanely, he sees things as they are. It is in this that his liberty consists—in the ability to see clearly and soberly, in the power of mental record.”
—Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821–1881)
“The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has killed a great many philosophers.”
—Denis Diderot (1713–1784)