On this day...

British philosopher John Stuart Mill died in 1873, at the age of 66. Mill endured a rigorous education, partly assisted by fellow thinker Jeremy Bentham, and at a young age was confident in both classical and contemporary literature. In accordance with the wishes of his father, Mill studied political economy from the age of 13, but by 20 the intensive workload had taken its toll, and he suffered a nervous breakdown and subsequent depression - a state that he overcame with the help of Wordsworth's poetry.

Refusing to enter Cambridge or Oxford University due to their Anglican principles, Mill instead followed his father's imperialist doctrine, and enter the East India Company. His marriage, to Harriet Taylor, cemented his advocacy of of women's rights, and indeed his political views were often contentious for the era in which he lived. A committed Libertarian, and a keen proponent of utilitarianism, Mill coined the concept 'tyranny of the majority', and argued for individual freedom, forming the main pillars of modern Liberal Democrat beliefs. Some of Mill's most famous writings on the subject, includes; 'On Liberty', 'Utilitarianism', 'Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform', and 'The Subject of Women'.

On this day...

American writer Henry David Thoreau died in 1862, at the age of 44. Born David Henry, Thoreau was described by Hawthorne as, 'as ugly as sin, long-nosed, queer-mouthed, and with uncouth and rustic, though courteous manners', indeed, it was said that his facial hair would 'most assuredly deflect amorous advances'. Having studied at Harvard, in fields ranging from philosophy to maths, Thoreau decided that he was not suited to the inevitably career path that was to follow, and instead founded a grammar school with his brother.

It was on his return home, that Thoreau met Ralph Waldo Emerson, who introduced him into a circle of literary talents and local thinkers and encouraged him to contribute to periodicals, and indeed, Thoreau's first essay, 'Aulus Persius Flaccus' was publihsed in 1840. Although his first works were based around a transcendentalist philosophy. Thoreau turned increasingly to civil disobedience to fight an environmentalist cause, and his most famous novel, 'Walden', stimulated by the eponymous woods, became a reflection on nature's simple living. His second best known work, 'Civil Disobedience', is said to have inspired such figures as Gandhi, Martin Luther King, J.F. Kennedy, and Leo Tolstoy.    

On this day...

Arguably the greatest philosopher to have lived, Aristotle, is said to have died in 322 BC, at the age of 62. A student of Plato, who in turn was a pupil of Socrates, Aristotle is considered one of the most important figures in Western philosophy. His writings encompass areas of morality, theology, ethics, logic, politics, poetry - the list goes on. Aristotle's father was the personal physician to King Amyntas of Macedon, and as such, Aristotle was educated as a member of the aristocracy.

Having received training at Plato's academy, Aristotle travelled far and wide, to Asia Minor and the Greek islands, finally ending up in Macedon, where he became tutor to young Alexander the Great, and two other future kings, Ptolemy and Cassander. Returning to Athens, Aristotle established his own school, Lyceum, and here composed many of his most famous treatises, including 'De Anima'. He died amidst accusations of plotting against his former pupil Alexander. Aristotle himself divided his works into the 'exoteric' and 'esoteric', and the traditional 'Corpus Aristotelicum' which survived through to the Middle Ages consists of 45 treatises.

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Scottish critic and writer Thomas Carlyle died in 1881, at the age of 85. Born to a strict Calvanist family, Carlyle was brought up in the expectation that he would become a preacher. Yet Carlyle lost his faith at university, whilst retaining the sense of Christian morality; and so he became the embodiment of the Victorian struggle between religion and science. Following the study of German literature, including Goethe and Fichte, Carlyle began to persue his own literary career, publishing his first major work, 'Sartor Resartus', in 1832. Preceding the development of New England Transcendentialism, the work was an attack on English Utilitarianism, using a fictional German 'philosopher of clothes' to explore them.

Meanwhile, Carlyle had married Jane Welsh, a woman of letters; yet their union was said to be unhappy. Indeed novelist Samuel Butler said of them; 'It was very good of God to let Carlyle and Mrs Carlyle marry one another, and so make only two people miserable and not four'. Carlyle's works, including 'The French Revolution' and 'Heroes and Hero Worship', would go on to influence later commentators, such as John Ruskin and Matthew Arnold.

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English art and social critic John Ruskin died in 1900, at the age of 80. Ruskin showed an aptitude for writing from a young age, and by 15 he was contributing to several well known publications, including the 'Magazine of Natural History', and the 'Architectural Magazine'; the latter  under the pen name κατα φυσιν - 'according to nature'. Donning another pen name, of 'A Oxford Graduate', Ruskin published the first of his important works, 'Modern Painters', in which he argued the value of contemporary landscape painters such as Turner, over those of the post-Renaissance period. Yet perhaps he is more well known for his connections to the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood; supporting Rossetti, Hunt and Millais, until the latter married his wife, who had been granted divorce on account of impotency on Ruskin's part. Ruskin then changed his focus from art, to social theory. Greatly inspired by friend and critic Thomas Carlyle, he started to explore capitalism and its downfalls, influencing the development of both the Labour Party, and Christian Socialism. Ruskin was, as Tolstoy describes him, 'one of those rare men who think with their heart' and he has left a lasting legacy, even including the addition of the term pathetic fallacy to the language.

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François-Marie Arouet, better known by his pen name Voltaire, was born in 1694. Voltaire was a student of classical languages, and it was from this that his pseudonym came; an anagram of Arovet Li, the Latinised version of his surname, just one of the 178 aliases he is known to have taken. Part of the French Enlightenment movement, which included Jean Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire believed in reason as the basis of authority, questioning the traditional institutions and customs of the time. Although a philosopher by first trade, he soon became a prolific writer of almost every literary form; including poetry, drama, novels and more than 20,000 letters. His sharp wit led Voltaire to being imprisioned in the Bastille, then exiled to England, sparking his subsequent attempts to reform the French judicial system. His best known work remains 'Candide', and he died in 1778 aged 83. When asked on his deathbed by a priest to renounce the devil and turn to God, he is alleged to have replied, 'Now is no time to be making new enemies'.

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Albert Camus, an Algerian-born, French writer, was born in 1913. Camus, also a philosophical authority, was often cited as being an advocate of exisitentialist thought, in which induvidual should primarily be concerned with their own existance; yet Camus himself denied this. He later became associated with absurdism, which deems the search by humanity for meaning in the universe to be futile. Influenced by figures such as Orwell and Dostoevsky, Camus tranferred these ideas into novels; producing such works as 'The Stranger', 'The Plague' and 'The Fall'. Camus was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957 for illuminating 'the problems of the human conscience in our times', becoming the first African-born writer and second youngest recipient of the award. He died in 1960, earning him the undesirable title of shortest-lived literature laureate to date.

On this day...

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, the Russian Novelist, was born in Moscow in 1821. Most of his literary works are of a nature which delves into human psychology, and as such, he is often said to be a foreshadowing of 20th century existentialism; a philosophical school of thought in which emotions, responsibilities and induvidual existance are most prominent. In 1849, Dostoyevsky was put in prision for being part of Petrashevsky Circle, a literary discussion group strongly opposed to tsarist autocracy. After being sentanced to death and waiting outside to be shot by a firing squad, his sentance was reduced to four years hard labour in Siberia; an experience he described like being 'shut up in a coffin'. His most famous works, written after this experience, are 'Crime and Punishment' and 'The Brothers Karamazov'.