DOCSLIB.ORG

CHAPTER TWO VICTOR COUSIN Victor Cousin Is Probably The

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
CHAPTER TWO VICTOR COUSIN Victor Cousin Is Probably The CHAPTER TWO VICTOR COUSIN Victor Cousin is probably the most important figure in French philosophy of the nineteenth century. He founded a school of philosophy and effected its wide dissemination; rekindled a respect for the philosophy of ancient times and the middle ages; promoted the study of recent and contemporary German philosophers from Kant through Hegel; and set standards for exegetical thoroughness in his many translations and editions that subsequent generations can only strive to equal. That Cousin came by an education at all was apparently the result of one of life's bizarre contingencies. The story has it that one day, as a youth, he sprang to the defense of another boy who was being tormented in the streets by a band of bullies. Out of gratitude for such a spontaneous and noble act, the boy's parents insisted on paying Cousin's way through school. By 1815, some years and an armful of academic awards later, Cousin found himself, at the ripe age of 23, lecturing in philosophy at the Ecole normale. A spellbind­ ing orator, he rapidly achieved a large audience for his philosophical views and preferences. After only five years of teaching, however, he was officially silenced, as the political situation tightened and his views were judged to be too liberal for public consumption. But when Cousin was restored to his chair eight years later (in 1828), during a brief period of political detente while Martignac headed Charles X's cabinet, there erupted a great flurry of excitement in the Latin quarter and beyond. Each lecture was eagerly awaited, and immediately upon its delivery a transcription would be whisked off, printed and dispatched throughout France. Philosophy had been awakened from its sommeil dogmatique; and it was all Cousin's doing. As a professor, Cousin's philosophical doctrine, combined with his personal charisma, enabled him to develop a considerable following over the years. As Director of Public Instruction, a position he held for a number of years until political matters—this time the revolution of 1848—once again caused him to step down, he was well situated to place select individuals in key positions 60 CHAPTER TWO throughout the country (as well as to keep representatives of "repellant" philosophical views, such as Auguste Comte, out of such positions). As a result, the character of the philosophical education one received in France bore his imprint directly for at least a generation, and indirectly for longer yet. The philosophy Cousin promulgated, while it contained doctrinal elements, was characterized rather in terms of its method. "Eclecti­ cism" is the name he gave to it, and it embodied the conviction that all philosophical systems contain something of the truth, commingled with certain false elements. The true philosophy would be the one which gathered the truths attained by various systems throughout the ages, and pared away from them whatever false beliefs they had been associated with. I shall say more about eclecticism shortly; for the moment let us just note that the very nature of the doctrine draws its adherents into a consideration of the whole history of philosophy. It is not a system of beliefs which could be reached through reflections carried out in isolation, for how, under such circumstances, would one come to know what truths had been unearthed by previous philosophers? Eclecticism thus required a serious critical examination of the results attained by philosophers across the centuries. When French philosophy had been brought to a crossroads two centuries earlier by Descartes, it was done so in quite the opposite spirit: the teachings of the elders were to be distrusted generally, systematically, in order that a new foundation might be laid, upon which an individual thinker—one such as Descartes—could profitably build, outfitted with but a few rules to direct his mind. It is a telling point of contrast that while Descartes boasted of the scantiness of his own library, Cousin was a bibliophile extraordinaire. Closer to Cousin's time, Cabanis and Destutt de Tracy—the Idéologues—showed likewise a Cartesian disdain for historical studies, and they had been in the ascendancy for quite some time. They believed themselves in possession of an empirical method for the study and interpretation of phenomena, both internal and external, which rendered obsolete all previous explorations into these areas. And why bother to study that which is obsolete? Thus France's greatest philosopher and its latest philosophy either counseled or practiced a certain indifference to the history of philosophy. Cousin, on the other hand, brought forward translations of Plato and Proclus, collected and edited the works of Descartes, .
Load more

Recommended publications
  • New—England Transcendentalism
    FRENCH PHILOSOPHERS AND NEW—ENGLAND TRAN SCENDENTALISM FRENCH PHILOSOPHERS AND NEW—ENGLAND TRANSCENDENTALISM BY WALTER L. LEIGHTON H A THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LITERATURE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA Huihetg’itp of Eirginia CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA 1908 To C. W. K. WHO HAS GIVEN ME BOTH THE ENCOURAGEMENT AND OPPOR'I‘UNIT‘I." FOIL THE WRITING OF THIS THESIS . PREFACE HE writings of the Transcendentalists of New England have been from youth of especial interest to me. An investi- gation of the phenomena of New-England Transcendentalism was instigated by a reading of the chapter on 'l‘ranscendentalism in Professor Barrett Wendell’s Literary History of America. The idea of making a specialty of the French influence in its relation to New-England Transcendentalism as a subject for a doctorate thesis was intimated to me by Professor LeB. R. Briggs, Dean of the Harvard University faculty. Thanks for assistance in the course of actually drawing up the dissertation are due— first, to Dr. Albert Lefevre, professor of philosophy at the University of Virginia, for valuable suggestions concerning the definition of Transcendentalism ; next, to Dr. It. H. Wilson and adjunct-professor Dr. E. P. Dargan, of the depart— ment of Romance Languages at the University of Virginia, for kind help in the work of revision and correction, and, finally, to Dr. Charles W. Kent, professor at the head of the department of English at the University of Virginia, for general supervision of - my work on the thesis. In the work of compiling and writing the thesis I have been _ swayed by two motives: first, the purpose to gather by careful research and investigation certain definite facts concerning the French philosophers and the Transcendental movement in New England; and, secondly, the desire to set forth the information amassed in a cursory and readable style.
    [Show full text]
  • Bibliothèque De Flers Et À Divers
    BEAUSSANT LEFÈVRE Commissaires-Priseurs Bibliothèque de Flers et à divers Alain NICOLAS Expert PARIS – DROUOT – 13 JUIN 2014 Ci-dessus : Voltaire, n° 203 En couverture : Mucha - Flers, n° 168 BIBLIOTHÈQUE DE FLERS et à divers VENDREDI 13 JUIN 2014 à 14 h Par le ministère de Mes Eric BEAUSSANT et Pierre-Yves LEFÈVRE Commissaires-Priseurs associés Assistés de Michel IMBAULT BEAUSSANT LEFÈVRE Société de ventes volontaires Siren n° 443-080 338 - Agrément n° 2002-108 32, rue Drouot - 75009 PARIS Tél. : 01 47 70 40 00 - Télécopie : 01 47 70 62 40 www.beaussant-lefevre.com E-mail : [email protected] Assistés par Alain NICOLAS Expert près la Cour d’Appel de Paris Assisté de Pierre GHENO Archiviste paléographe Librairie « Les Neuf Muses » 41, Quai des Grands Augustins - 75006 Paris Tél. : 01.43.26.38.71 - Télécopie : 01.43.26.06.11 E-mail : [email protected] PARIS - DROUOT RICHELIEU - SALLE n° 7 9, rue Drouot - 75009 Paris - Tél. : 01.48.00.20.20 - Télécopie : 01.48.00.20.33 EXPOSITIONS – chez l’expert, pour les principales pièces, du 5 au 10 Juin 2014, uniquement sur rendez-vous – à l’Hôtel Drouot le Jeudi 12 Juin de 11 h à 18 h et le Vendredi 13 Juin de 11 h à 12 h Téléphone pendant l’exposition et la vente : 01 48 00 20 07 Ménestrier, n° 229 CONDITIONS DE LA VENTE Les acquéreurs paieront en sus des enchères, les frais et taxes suivants : pour les livres : 20,83 % + TVA (5,5 %) = 21,98 % TTC pour les autres lots : 20,83 % + TVA (20 %) = 25 % TTC La vente est faite expressément au comptant.
    [Show full text]
  • The Cult of Socrates: the Philosopher and His Companions in Satie's Socrate
    Utah State University DigitalCommons@USU Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects Honors Program Spring 2013 The Cult of Socrates: The Philosopher and His Companions in Satie's Socrate Andrea Decker Moreno Utah State University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/honors Part of the Music Commons Recommended Citation Moreno, Andrea Decker, "The Cult of Socrates: The Philosopher and His Companions in Satie's Socrate" (2013). Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects. 145. https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/honors/145 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Honors Program at DigitalCommons@USU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@USU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE CULT OF SOCRATES: THE PHILOSOPHER AND HIS COMPANIONS IN SATIE’S SOCRATE by Andrea Decker Moreno Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of HONORS IN UNIVERSITY STUDIES WITH DEPARTMENTAL HONORS in Music – Vocal Performance in the Department of Music Approved: Thesis/Project Advisor Departmental Honors Advisor Dr. Cindy Dewey Dr. Nicholas Morrison Director of Honors Program Dr. Nicholas Morrison UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY Logan, UT Spring 2013 The Cult of Socrates: The philosopher and his companions in Satie's Socrate Satie's Socrate is an enigma in the musical world, a piece that defies traditional forms and styles. Satie chose for his subject one of the most revered characters of history, the philosopher Socrates. Instead of evaluating his philosophy and ideas, Satie created a portrait of Socrates from the most intimate moments Socrates spent with his followers in Plato's dialogues.
    [Show full text]
  • APPENDICES It Would Seem That Hume Had Predecessors, Or at The
    APPENDICES 1. THE PRECURSORS OF HUME (p. 58) It would seem that Hume had predecessors, or at the very least precursors, in the Middle Ages, in particular Robert Holkot in the twelfth century, about whom little is actually known (cf. IR 90, 342 [Loewenberg 87, 302]). As for Nicholas de Ultricuria [Nicolas of Autrecourt], who had previously been known only as an atomist and whose name has been suggested by Hastings RASHDALL ('Nicholas de Ultricuria, a Medieval Hume,' Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 7 [1906-1907] 3 ff.), among the texts cited the only thing we see that really applies to this question consists of the following lines from Nicholas's Thesis 15: Quibuscunque acceptis, que possunt esse causa alicujus effectus, nescimus evidenter quod ad positionem eorum sequatur effectus positio ["Whatever conditions we take to be the cause of any effect, we do not evidently know that, those conditions being posited, it follows that the effect must be posited also" (Rashdall 10)], and this passage perhaps does not quite suffice to demonstrate the English author's claim. It is highly significant that both Robert and Nicolas professed atomistic opinions, and it is at least quite probable that, for these two aspects of their doctrines, they were closely linked to the Arab Mutakallimun, whom they probably knew through the resumes and refutations of Jewish thinkers, notably Maimonides, and who, in addition to a radical atomism, maintained the impossibility of any logical connection between cause and effect (see Isaac HUSIK, A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy, New York: Macmillan, 1916, pp. xxi-xxii, xxvii, 249).
    [Show full text]
  • Emerson's Hidden Influence: What Can Spinoza Tell the Boy?
    Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University Philosophy Honors Theses Department of Philosophy 6-15-2007 Emerson's Hidden Influence: What Can Spinoza Tell the Boy? Adam Adler Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/philosophy_hontheses Recommended Citation Adler, Adam, "Emerson's Hidden Influence: What Can Spinoza Tell the Boy?." Thesis, Georgia State University, 2007. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/philosophy_hontheses/2 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Philosophy at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Philosophy Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. EMERSON’S HIDDEN INFLUENCE: WHAT CAN SPINOZA TELL THE BOY? by ADAM ADLER Under the Direction of Reiner Smolinski and Melissa Merritt ABSTRACT Scholarship on Emerson to date has not considered Spinoza’s influence upon his thought. Indeed, from his lifetime until the twentieth century, Emerson’s friends and disciples engaged in a concerted cover-up because of Spinoza’s hated name. However, Emerson mentioned his respect and admiration of Spinoza in his journals, letters, lectures, and essays, and Emerson’s thought clearly shows an importation of ideas central to Spinoza’s system of metaphysics, ethics, and biblical hermeneutics. In this essay, I undertake a biographical and philosophical study in order to show the extent of Spinoza’s influence on Emerson and
    [Show full text]
  • The Philosophical Polemic in Havana Revisited by Vicente Medina
    The Philosophical Polemic in Havana Revisited by Vicente Medina The Philosophical Polemic in Havana Revisited* by Vicente Medina English Abstract The polemic was an important cultural event in 19th-century Cuba. From 1838 to 1840, issues of metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, pedagogy, and the influence of Victor Cousin’s eclecticism were discussed in the island’s leading newspapers. A brief historical account preceding the polemic is offered. I argue that the predominant view of the polemic, which is motivated by a widespread desire for Cuba’s independence from Spain, is misleading in its promotion of an emancipatory myth. Lastly, I argue that José de la Luz y Caballero’s appeal to patriotism during the polemic unwittingly established a dangerous precedent for self-appointed guardians of patriotism to condition public debates. Resumen en español La polémica fue un importante evento cultural durante el siglo diecinueve en Cuba. Entre 1838 a 1840 se debatieron en los principales periódicos de la isla temas en torno a la metafísica, la epistemología, la ética, la pedagogía y la influencia del eclecticismo de Víctor Cousin. Narro brevemente algunos de los hechos históricos que antecedieron esta polémica. Sostengo que es inexacta la interpretación predominante que esta polémica fue motivada por el deseo de independizar a Cuba de España. Tal interpretación promueve un mito de emancipación. Según mi análisis, cuando en su intervención en la polémica José de la Luz y Caballero apela al patriotismo, establece sin saberlo un precedente peligroso que usarán los autodenominados protectores del patriotismo para restringir los debates públicos. Resumo em português A polêmica foi um importante evento cultural durante o século dezenove em Cuba.
    [Show full text]
  • Effects of the Agrégation De Philosophie on Twentieth- Century French Philosophy
    Effects of the Agrégation de Philosophie on Twentieth- Century French Philosophy AL A N D . S C HRI ft much attention has been paid to developments in French philosophy over the past half century, and it has been frequently noted that the recent history of French philosophy differs significantly from its counterparts in England, Germany, and the United States. While many reasons for these differences have been suggested, in what follows I would like to suggest that there is an important and unique French institution—one with no equivalent in the English-speaking or German academic systems—that has had a significant impact on developments in French philosophy throughout the twentieth century. This institution is the Agrégation de Philosophie, and its effects are virtually unknown among philosophers outside France. Even within France—while knowledge of and experience with the agréga- tion is part of the intellectual formation and career of virtually every academic educated in France, including every philosopher teaching in a university and the majority of philosophers teaching the classe de philosophie in French lycées—French philosophers themselves seem relatively unaware and uninterested in the history of the agrégation and the effects that this history has had on philosophical practices in France. What I hope to do in the following pages is explain how the agréga- tion de philosophie works, and suggest that its impact on the education of French philosophy students and the teaching corps in both the university and lycée helps explain a number of developments in French philosophy over the past century. I will also explain why the French philosophical tradition differs from its American counterpart in some very significant ways.
    [Show full text]
  • The Bergsonian Moment: Science and Spirit in France, 1874-1907
    THE BERGSONIAN MOMENT: SCIENCE AND SPIRIT IN FRANCE, 1874-1907 by Larry Sommer McGrath A dissertation submitted to Johns Hopkins University in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Baltimore, Maryland June, 2014 © 2014 Larry Sommer McGrath All Rights Reserved Intended to be blank ii Abstract My dissertation is an intellectual and cultural history of a distinct movement in modern Europe that I call “scientific spiritualism.” I argue that the philosopher Henri Bergson emerged from this movement as its most celebrated spokesman. From the 1874 publication of Émile Boutroux’s The Contingency of the Laws of Nature to Bergson’s 1907 Creative Evolution, a wave of heterodox thinkers, including Maurice Blondel, Alfred Fouillée, Jean-Marie Guyau, Pierre Janet, and Édouard Le Roy, gave shape to scientific spiritualism. These thinkers staged a rapprochement between two disparate formations: on the one hand, the rich heritage of French spiritualism, extending from the sixteenth- and seventeeth-century polymaths Michel de Montaigne and René Descartes to the nineteenth-century philosophes Maine de Biran and Victor Cousin; and on the other hand, transnational developments in the emergent natural and human sciences, especially in the nascent experimental psychology and evolutionary biology. I trace the influx of these developments into Paris, where scientific spiritualists collaboratively rejuvenated the philosophical and religious study of consciousness on the basis of the very sciences that threatened the authority of philosophy and religion. Using original materials gathered in French and Belgian archives, I argue that new reading communities formed around scientific journals, the explosion of research institutes, and the secularization of the French education system, brought about this significant, though heretofore neglected wave of thought.
    [Show full text]
  • Kant's Reception in France: Theories of the Categories in Academic
    Kant’s Reception in France: Theories of the Categories in Academic Philosophy, Psychology, and Social Science Warren Schmaus Illinois Institute of Technology Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/posc/article-pdf/11/1/3/1789191/106361403322286698.pdf by guest on 30 September 2021 It has been said that Kant’s critical philosophy made it impossible to pursue either the Cartesian rationalist or the Lockean empiricist program of provid- ing a foundation for the sciences (e.g., Guyer 1992). This claim does not hold true for much of nineteenth century French philosophy, especially the eclectic spiritualist tradition that begins with Victor Cousin (1792–1867) and Pierre Maine de Biran (1766–1824) and continues through Paul Janet (1823–99). This tradition assimilated Kant’s transcendental apper- ception of the unity of experience to Descartes’s cogito. They then took this to be the method of a philosophical psychology that reveals the active self as sub- stance or cause and thus provides the epistemological grounding for these cate- gories. However, to dismiss these philosophers as simply confused or mistaken would be to overlook the historical role that their interpretations of Kant played in the subsequent development of philosophy and the social sciences in France. Speciªcally, Émile Durkheim’s (1858–1917) sociological theory of the categories was deeply inºuenced by the eclectic spiritualist tradition and yet at the same time developed in reaction to it, as he thought that its psycho- logical account of the categories failed to bring out their shared or universal character and the extent to which our conceptions of the categories are cultural products.
    [Show full text]
  • The Brain in the Third Republic: Science, Pedagogy, and National Regeneration
    The Brain in the Third Republic: Science, Pedagogy, and National Regeneration Larry S. McGrath Before Parisian crowds overflowed his celebrated lectures at the Collège de France, Henri Bergson came to the provincial town of Clermont-Ferrand in 1883 to teach the philosophy course in a lycée (the French equivalent of high school). Bergson opened the first lesson on psychology, the centerpiece of the course, with a thorough introduction to human neurology, and proceeded to critique the reductionist implications of the nascent science: “If sadness were in the heart, if thought were in the head, it would occupy a place there, which by dissecting one could end up finding on the end of a scalpel…But thought does not reside in the brain.”1 Bergson was no materialist. The lesson reflected his philosophy of the mind’s creative powers advanced in Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience (1889) and Matière et mémoire (1896). But well before he won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1927, Bergson instructed his students using cerebral diagrams replete with anatomical descriptions and physiological localizations of the brain’s functions. The lesson also betrayed an ideological cleavage at the heart of philosophy’s public mission under the Third Republic: Bergson was both an independent thinker indebted to the nation’s rich spiritualist tradition, extending from René Descartes and Michel de Montaigne to Victor Cousin, and a civil servant tasked with inculcating laïque and scientific values in the classroom. Bergson belonged to a generation of lycée philosophy instructors entrusted as the public stewards of still-budding brain research.
    [Show full text]
  • Thomas Reid's Common-Sense Philosophy in the Development Of
    Thomas Reid’s Common-Sense Philosophy in the Development of Nineteenth-Century French Spiritualism by James Crombie Université Sainte-Anne 1695 Route 1, Pointe-de-l’Église Nova Scotia, Canada james.crombie <at> usainteanne.ca Conference 19th-Century French Philosophy: The 'Spiritualist' Tradition and its Critics, 14-15 September 2017, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK This presentation calls attention to the surprising level of influence which the Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid (1710-1796) had on nineteenth-century French philosophy – especially among professional teachers of philosophy in French universities – in particular among those identified as belonging to the so-called ‘spiritualist’ tradition. Some of the political, social, personal – and even philosophical – reasons for this phenomenon will be adumbrated. There were many figures who could be considered to be influential Reidians during the nineteenth-century in France. This presentation will focus on the major players: firstly, Royer-Collard; secondly, Cousin, Damiron and Jouffroy. Some attention will be paid, thirdly, to some of the members of the third generation: Adolphe Garnier, Amédée Jacques, Émile Saisset, Jules Simon, Adolphe Bertereau and Adolphe Franck. Pierre Maine de Biran and Joseph- Marie Degérando (aka de Gérando) are mentioned but not Pierre Prévost who, in Geneva, was publishing on the subject of Reid before he was discovered in Paris by Royer-Collard. Thomas Reid This portrait is reputed to be the only surviving visual likeness of Thomas Reid. It was painted by Sir Henry Raeburn in 1796, upon the urging of James Gregory, on the occasion of a visit by Reid, in the year in which Reid died, at the age of 86.
    [Show full text]
  • Maine De Biran's Leibniz
    This is a repository copy of A Universal and Absolute Spiritualism: Maine de Biran's Leibniz. White Rose Research Online URL for this paper: http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/97861/ Version: Accepted Version Book Section: Dunham, J. (2016) A Universal and Absolute Spiritualism: Maine de Biran's Leibniz. In: Meacham, D. and Spadola, J., (eds.) The Relationship between the Physical and the Moral in Man. Bloomsbury . ISBN 9781472579676 Reuse Items deposited in White Rose Research Online are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved unless indicated otherwise. They may be downloaded and/or printed for private study, or other acts as permitted by national copyright laws. The publisher or other rights holders may allow further reproduction and re-use of the full text version. This is indicated by the licence information on the White Rose Research Online record for the item. Takedown If you consider content in White Rose Research Online to be in breach of UK law, please notify us by emailing [email protected] including the URL of the record and the reason for the withdrawal request. [email protected] https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/ A Universal and Absolute Spiritualism Maine de Biran’s Leibniz Jeremy Dunham (University of Sheffield) In France during the nineteenth century the production of new editions, interpretations, and expositions of early modern philosophical texts was a flourishing activity. However, it is important to recognise when examining the scholarly works of this period that such interpretation and exposition was almost never produced without an agenda. A favourable interpretation of one of the giants of early modern philosophy that shows them to be the natural ‘father’ of one’s own philosophical perspective could act as a significant legitimation of this view and, consequently, could become a weapon in philosophical combat.
    [Show full text]