John Stuart Mill’s Platonic Heritage

In the early draft of his Autobiography (London, 1873), John Stuart Mill described himself as “a pupil of Plato, and cast in the mould of his dialectics." However, how Plato’s influence came about, to what extent, and with regard to which aspects of Mill’s thought, form questions that do not usually preoccupy Mill scholarship. To fill this gap in critical attention, this book draws upon a variety of primary sources to pay particular attention to Mill’s concern with reform, method, character, vir