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Formulating an Anarchist Sociology: Peter Kropotkin’s Reading of Herbert Spencer
- Journal of the History of Ideas
- University of Pennsylvania Press
- Volume 77, Number 1, January 2016
- pp. 49-73
- 10.1353/jhi.2016.0004
- Article
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The work of Herbert Spencer was a crucial influence on the development of Peter Kropotkin’s historical sociology. However, scholars have underestimated this relationship; either overlooking it entirely, or minimizing Kropotkin’s attachment to Spencer with the aim of maintaining the utility of his political thought in the present. This article contests these interpretations by analyzing Kropotkin’s reading of Spencer’s epistemological, biological, and political ideas. It argues that Kropotkin was engaged in a critical dialogue with Spencer, incorporating many Spencerian principles in his own system, but also using this reading to articulate a distinctive anarchist politics.