French philosophy

Ratramnus

Medieval philosophy was very much a part of Christian philosophy and theology. Ratramnus (d. c. 868) defended Gottschalk of Orbais' (808–868) views on double predestination, a controversy throughout Francia in the 9th century.^[4]

Ratramnus also later supported Gottschalk in his conflict with archbishop Hincmar (806–882) of Rheims, advisor to Charles the Bald. Hincmar of Rheims altered a hymn, changing the words trina deitas (triune God) for summa deitas (supreme God).^[5][6] Gottschalk accused Hincmar of Sabellianism, and Hincmar accused Gottschalk of Arianism.^[7]

Ratramnus also wrote Against the Objections of the Greeks who Slandered the Roman Church, a response to the Photian schism (863–867) and defense of the filioque addition to the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed.^[8]

Gaunilo

The Benedictine monk of Marmoutier Abbey and empiricist Gaunilo is well known for his work In Behalf of the Fool.^[a] Gaunilo objects to Saint Anselm of Canterbury's (1033–1109) ontological argument for the existence of God found in Anselm's Proslogion (c. 1078). Gaunilo contends as a reductio that the same argument proves the existence of "the most perfect island".^[9] Lanfranc (c. 1010–1089) and Saint Anselm were Benedictine monks at Bec Abbey.^[10]

Nominalism

Medieval philosophy was also concerned with the problem of universals inherited from antiquity. Roscellinus (c. 1050–c. 1121) defended nominalism, stating universals are merely an emission of sound (flatus vocis).^[11][12] Among Roscellinus' supporters was Raimbert of Lille.^[13]

Roscellinus also stated the three persons of the Trinity were not one substance, arguing if they were then God the Father and the Holy Spirit would have become incarnate along with God the Son. This prompted Anselm's De Fide Trinitatis.^[b]

In 1092/1093, a council convoked at Soissons by the archbishop of Reims condemned his interpretation and accused Roscellinus of tritheism.^[16][17] Roscellinus recanted his theological beliefs, but later returned to professing them.^[18]

Platonism

Anselm of Laon (d. 1117) studied under Anselm at Bec and was a leading proponent of philosophical realism who helped to pioneer biblical hermeneutics.^[19] William of Champeaux (c. 1070–1121) studied under Roscellinus and Anselm of Laon, and was also a proponent of realism.^[20] William was a friend of mystic Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153).^[20]

Indifferentism

William of Champeaux was also the teacher of Walter of Mortagne (c. 1100–1174),^[28] leader of the "indifferentists", a type of platonist who attempts to avoid the more extreme forms of platonism, and according to whom the universal it itself indifferent, changing according to points of view. Raimbert's nominalism was attacked by Odo of Tournai (1060–1113).^[29]

Aristotelianism

Peter Abelard

Peter Abelard (1079–1142) was a scholastic philosopher, theologian and logician who taught at the cathedral schools of Paris. The Chambers Biographical Dictionary describes him as "the keenest thinker and boldest theologian of the 12th Century".^[30] He wrote Sic et Non (c. 1121) and fixed more decisively than anyone before him the scholastic manner of philosophizing. Abelard was also expelled by Anselm of Laon, and clashed with his master William of Champeaux, and opposed by Alberic of Paris.^[31] Abelard is also notable for his love affair and collaboration with Héloïse (1101–1164).^[32]

Abelard helped to establish the authority of Aristotle's logic.^[33] Abelard distinguished between de dicto modal sentences and de re modal sentences.^[34] Abelard also defended conceptualism on the problem of universals.^[35] Abelard further showed a great interest in ethics.

Limbo

Abelard amended Augustine's doctrine of original sin. The Vatican and Pope Innocent III accepted the view that unbaptized babies did not, as at first believed, go straight to Hell but to a special area of limbo, limbus infantium.^[36][37] They would therefore feel no pain, but no supernatural happiness either, because they would not be able to see the deity who created them.^[38]

Paris

Abelard's lectures attracted students from across Europe, helping prepare the founding of the University of Paris a few decades after his death.^[39] The patronage of Italian philosopher Peter Lombard (c. 1096–1160) by Odo, bishop of Lucca, who recommended him to Bernard of Clairvaux, allowed him to leave Italy and further his studies at Reims and Paris. Lombard is author of the Sentences (c. 1150).

The Petit Pont school introduced the new logic, and included Adam of Balsham (c. 1100–c. 1157), who studied with Lombard, and William of Soissons, who coined the principle of explosion.^[40] The Summa aurea of William of Auxerre (1150–1231) shows a debt to Lombard.^[41] William of Auxerre influenced John of La Rochelle (c. 1200–1245). Italian philosopher and founder of the Aristotelian Thomist school Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225–1274) taught at Paris. John of Paris (c. 1255–1306) defended Aquinas.

Condemnation of 1277

The Condemnations of 1210–1277 at the recently founded Sorbonne, Étienne Tempier deemed Aristotle's Physics to be heresy, opening the door to modern science by questioning ancient science.^[42] Siger of Brabant (c. 1240–c. 1284) and Boethius of Dacia have been singled out as the most prominent targets of the 1277 censure. These two scholars were proponents of the Averroist movement. John of Jandun (c. 1285–1328) was a later Averroist.

The enigmatic Gerard of Brussels probably published his pioneering study of kinematics Liber de motu (On Motion) some time in the 13th century.^[43] Lambert of Auxerre was a contemporary logician.

Llullism

Catalan Ramon Llull (c. 1232–c. 1316) visited Paris in the 1280s and Llullism became popular. Llulism is a philosophical system known as 'the Art' which propounds a belief in the unity of Christianity influenced by neoplatonism.^[47]

Ockhamism

The nominalist beliefs of British philosopher William of Ockham were banned in Paris in 1339.^[50][51] Despite this his views proved influential.

Nicole Oresme

Nicole Oresme (1325–1382) studied with Buridan. Together they studied acceleration or "uniformly difform motion".^[53]

Oresme was a counselor of King Charles V.^[54] Oresme practiced astronomy, and his commentary on Aristotle's De Caelo (On the Heavens) anticipated Copernicus with arguments for the view that the Earth rotates.^[55][56] Oresme also criticized Aristotelian notions of space and time, considering time independent of motion, perhaps influenced by, or at least agreeing with, the views of prior scholars Peter John Olivi (1248–1298) and Gerardus Odonis (1285–1349).^[57][58]

Oresme also contributed to economics and followed Aristotle in arguing against usury,^[59] even though Oresme said inflation was worse.^[60] His opposition to usury was shared by Thomists like Giles of Lessines (c. 1230–c. 1304), as well as Giles of Rome (c. 1243–1316) student Italian Gerard of Siena (c. 1295–1336),^[61] and Peter John Olivi and Gerardus Odonis; and his master Buridan.^{[62][63][64][65]} Buridan and Oresme supported a metallist theory of money.^[60]

Pierre d'Ailly

Pierre d'Ailly (1351–1420) was a nominalist who taught the Sentences of Peter Lombard. His pupils were Jean Gerson (1363–1429) and Nicholas of Clémanges (c. 1360–1440). All three philosophers were embroiled in the Western Schism of 1378, which sent many French taught scholars elsewhere. Jean Gerson developed natural rights theory, and also defended the divine mission of Joan of Arc.^[67]

Raymond Sebond

University of Toulouse professor and physician Raymond Sebond (1385–1436) opposed the Ockhamists and was influenced by Llull. He attempted to reconcile reason and faith. Raymond declares that the Book of Nature and the Bible are both divine revelations.^[68] Sebond wrote the posthumously published Theologia naturalis (1484).

Humanism

Italian Renaissance humanist Gregory of Tifernas was the first teacher of Greek in France at the University of Paris in 1458.^[69] Guillaume Fichet (1433–c. 1480) and Robert Gaguin (1434–1501) are usually seen as the first French humanists. Guillaume Budé (1467–1540) was another French humanist.

French Renaissance humanist Rabelais (c. 1490–1553) contributed to French philosophy in Gargantua and Pantagruel a belief in hedonistic man uncorrupted by institutions, and ridiculed Pyrrhonism in the third book (1546).^[70]

Ramism

Logician and education reformer Petrus Ramus (1515–1572) wrote Quaecumque ab Aristotele dicta essent, commentitia esse (Everything that Aristotle has said is false) (1536). The Ramists distrusted human thought and put faith in intuitive logical relations.^[71] The Dialogues (1557) of Ramist Guy De Bruès (b. c. 1530) entertained skepticism.^[72][73]

The first writings on Ramism after the death of Ramus included biographies, and were by disciples of sorts: Freigius (1574 or 1575),^[74] Banosius (1576),^[75] and Nancelius [fr] (1599).^[c] Ramism had a lasting influence in Europe and even New England.

Reformation

France also saw a Protestant movement following the Reformation, such as the Huguenots, led by John Calvin (1509–1564), the founder of Calvinism, which believes in predestination and salvation through God alone (monergism). Calvin wrote Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536).^[77]

The Huguenots had precursors in such philosophers as Llullist Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples (c. 1455–c. 1536).^[78] Jean Bodin (c. 1530–1596) was critical of papal authority, preferring the sovereignty of an absolute monarch during the Wars of Religion.^[79] Ramus was a Protestant convert and a victim of the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre. Budé's family fled from France.

Skepticism

Henri Estienne (1531–1598) was responsible for the first printed Latin translation of the works of Pyrrhonian skeptic Sextus Empiricus in 1562.^[80]

Charron

Montaigne's follower was the Parisian Pierre Charron (1541–1603), who was also influenced by Guillaume du Vair. Charron is notable for De la Sagesse (On Wisdom, 1601), which argued that ethics could be separated from religion, and that one attacks reason to boost faith and wisdom.^[82][83] Charron also wrote Les Trois Vérités (The Three Truths, 1594), in which Charron sought to prove that God exists, Christianity is true, and the true church is Roman Catholicism. Francis Garasse (1585–1631) criticized Charron, believing he thought only nature was needed for wisdom and guidance.

René Descartes

Modern philosophy began in France with René Descartes (1596–1650), who raised problems central to 17th century thought. An expat who lived in the Dutch Republic, he studied at the Jesuit school La Flèche and was a pioneer of mathematics and the Scientific Revolution.^[85] He founded a mechanistic philosophy known as Cartesianism which incorporated his own Cartesian physics. His philosophy was also rationalist and dualist, supported in works like Meditations on First Philosophy (1641) and Discourse on Method (1637). The three great rationalists of early modern philosophy are Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, and German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716).

It is often said Descartes changed the primary object of philosophical thought from ontology to epistemology.^[86] Descartes was concerned with the recent spread of skepticism, and desired to find indubitable ground on which all the sciences could be placed and progressively built. Thus he doubted anything he could and accepted only certain (or apodeictic) knowledge as truth.

After invoking the possibility of dreaming to doubt the information given to him from his senses and the external world, and further of an omnipotent deceiver to reject the information given to him from mathematics and logic, Descartes discovered at least one thing could be known for certain. Even if he doubted everything, if he himself was doubting, then he had to exist. Thus Cogito Ergo Sum—I think, therefore I am. This became his first principle.^[87][88]

Descartes then claimed that because he discovered the Cogito through perceiving it "clearly and distinctly", anything he can similarly perceive as clearly and distinctly must be true. Then he argues that he can conceive of an infinite being, but finite beings cannot produce infinite ideas and hence an infinite being must have put the idea into his mind. He uses this argument, commonly known as an ontological argument, to invoke the existence of a benevolent God as the indubitable foundation that makes all sciences possible.

Jansenist controversy

Cartesianism attracted several followers such as Jansenist solitaires Antoine Arnauld (1612–1694) and Pierre Nicole (1625–1695). Together they produced the Port-Royal Logic (1662), the "most influential logic book after Aristotle and before the end of the nineteenth century".^[89] In 1649, Nicolas Cornet (1572–1663) sought the condemnation of five propositions from Cornelius Jansen's Augustinus. Arnauld defended the Jansenists.^[90] Cornet's student Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet (1627–1704) supported the king's revocation of the Edict of Nantes (Edict of Fontainebleau, 1685), abolishing the rights of the Protestant minority.^[91]

Other Cartesians include Louis de La Forge (1632–1666), Géraud de Cordemoy (1626–1684), Claude Clerselier (1614–1684), University of Paris professor Edmond Pourchot (1651–1734), recollect Antoine Le Grand (1629–1699), physicist Jacques Rohault (1618–1672), mystic Pierre Poiret (1646–1719), Pierre-Sylvain Régis (1632–1707), and François Poullain de la Barre (1647–1723).

De la Barre influenced Gabrielle Suchon (1632–1703), the first to produce a significant body of work dedicated solely to the topic of women.^[92] Claude Buffier (1661–1773) supported women's education.

Criticism

While Descartes drew many followers, others were left unsatisfied. Some accused him of circularity, proclaiming his ontological argument uses his definition of truth as a premise, while his proof of his definition of truth uses his ontological argument as a premise.

Another famous problem arises from Descartes’ substance dualism; the interaction problem first pointed out by Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia. For Descartes, a substance can be conceived of as existing independently of anything else. He defined the mind as an unextended substance and the body as an extended substance.^[93] This raised the fundamental question of how it is possible that mind and body interact with one another.^[94] Descartes also held as a result of his dualism that animals were mere machines.

Marin Mersenne

The Minim and polymath Marin Mersenne (1588–1648) wrote La Vérité des sciences (The Truth of Science) (1625), a dialogue between an alchemist, a skeptic and a Christian philosopher, the latter opposing both the over-confidence of the first and the excessive doubts of the second. The rest of the book is an 800 page compilation of mathematics to prove there is knowledge immune from doubt.^[95]

Mersenne was "the center of the world of science and mathematics during the first half of the 1600s"^[96] and, because of his ability to make connections between people and ideas, "the post-box of Europe".^[97] As well as France, Mersenne corresponded with scholars in the Dutch Republic, England, and Italy, including Constantijn Huygens, Thomas Hobbes, and Galileo Galilei.

Blaise Pascal

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) was a child prodigy mathematician and scientist who grew increasingly religious.^[98] Pascal was a vacuuist who repeated the barometric mercury experiments of Evangelista Torricelli,^[99] while Descartes was a plenist who held "nature abhors a vacuum".

Pascal is known for defending Jansenism and Arnauld in Provincial Letters (c. 1657).^[100] When Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet was asked which work he wished he had written aside from his own, he answered the Provincial Letters.^[101]

Pascal was also a fideist, and distinguished between using the head and using the heart. His aphoristic collection Pensées (1670) is a name given posthumously to fragments that Pascal had been preparing of an apology for Christianity, which was never completed. Pensées contains Pascal's Wager.^[d] Pascal's Wager is an early application of the mathematics of probability, and says people engage in a life-defining gamble regarding the belief in the existence of God.

Pascal was a Cartesian dualist, illustrated with a quote from the Pensées: "Man is only a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed." However, his disagreements can be illustrated by his calling Descartes' philosophy "useless and uncertain".^[98][103]

Nicolas Malebranche

Cartesian Nicolas Malebranche (1638–1715) believed not even substances of the same kind could interact with each other, because no necessary causation could be perceived. He proposes then that it is God, an uncreated substance, who brings it about that each time one perceives a 'cause', one also perceives an 'effect'. Hence the doctrine is named occasionalism.^[104] This doctrine saw predecessors in Louis de La Forge, Géraud de Cordemoy, and the Flemish Arnold Geulincx.

Malebranche was well-known and celebrated in his own time, but has since become somewhat of an obscure figure. However, his philosophy had a direct influence upon Spinoza, and Scottish skeptic David Hume's questioning of causality, which awoke Kant from his "dogmatic slumber."

Pierre Gassendi

The most influential anti-Cartesian in France was Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655), who argued against innate ideas. Gassendi sought to revive the ancient atomism of Epicureanism. He was also a nominalist and a skeptic. Historian of philosophy Richard Popkin states Gassendi was one of the first thinkers to formulate the modern "scientific outlook".^[105] Gassendi famously tracked the transit of Mercury in 1631, using the predictions of German Johannes Kepler's Rudolphine Tables (1627), with an image from a telescope projected onto a screen.^[106] Mercury was much smaller relative to the Sun than expected.^[107] A student of Gassendi's was Cyrano de Bergerac (1619–1655).

Pierre Huet

Another influential critic of Descartes was churchman Pierre Daniel Huet (1630–1721), who worked as Bossuet's assistant, and wrote Censura philosophiae cartesianae (1689), arguing for a return to Christian skepticism.^{[108][109][e]}

Pierre Bayle

Pierre Bayle (1647–1706) was a Huguenot who fled to Rotterdam in the Netherlands and wrote a biographical dictionary the Historical and Critical Dictionary (1697). His views were dubbed "super skepticism" by Popkin. Bayle would characterize his own views differently, stating "I know too much to be a Pyrrhonist, and I know too little to be a Dogmatist".^[111]

Bayle's discussion of the problem of evil inspired Leibniz, who wrote in Latin and French, to publish his Théodicée (1710).^[112] Leibniz was an optimist who believed God made the best of all possible worlds. Bayle was also an influence on David Hume.^[113]

Montesquieu

Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu (1689–1755) was a social commentator and political philosopher. His theories deeply influenced the American Founders. His belief that the state powers be separated into legislative, executive, and judicial branches formed the basis for separation of powers under the United States Constitution. In The Spirit of the Laws (1748), Montesquieu outlined the view that man and societies are influenced by climate. He believed that hotter climates create hot-tempered people and colder climates aloof people, whereas the mild climate of France is ideal for political systems.^[f]

Voltaire

François-Marie Arouet, better known as Voltaire (1694–1778), came to embody the Enlightenment with his criticisms of Church dogma and French institutions, his defense of civil liberties and his support of social reform. He fought for the right to a free trial and freedom of religion. Voltaire was a deist, and was twice sentenced to prison, and once to temporary exile to England.

A heavy influence on the Enlightenment was the work of British natural philosopher Sir Isaac Newton and the philosophy of Newtonianism, who published his Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1686), which included his laws of motion, introducing classical mechanics in physics.^[114]

Voltaire and Émilie du Châtelet (1706– 1749) wrote Elements of the Philosophy of Newton (1738), helping to popularize Newtonianism in France alongside Pierre Louis Maupertuis.^[115] Châteltet was the first woman published by the French Academy of Sciences. Voltaire's Letters on the English (1734) introduced French readers to the philosophy of the British empiricists like Newton and John Locke, as well as to playwright William Shakespeare.^[116]

Voltaire is best remembered today for his aphorisms and his satire of Leibniz known as Candide (1759), written soon after the 1755 Lisbon Earthquake,^[117] which tells the tale of a young believer in Leibnizian optimism who becomes disillusioned after a series of hardships.

Voltaire's anonymously published Philosophical Dictionary (1764) was censored in many countries, including Switzerland (Geneva) and France, where all available copies of the book were collected and burned in the town square.^[118][119]

Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) distinguished himself from the progressive scientism of the Enlightenment with his proclamation in Discourse on the Arts and Sciences (1750) that art and science are corruptors of human morality. Furthermore, he caused controversy with his theory that man is good by nature but corrupted by society, in contradiction to the Christian doctrine of original sin.

Rousseau's The Social Contract (1762) advances social contract theory and states that only the general will of the people has the right to legislate. It famously begins “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.” Upon publication, the distribution of The Social Contract in France was prohibited, and Rousseau fled the country to avoid imprisonment.^[120]

However it influenced the French Revolution. Rousseau was so highly praised by the French revolutionists that in 1794 his remains were moved to the Panthéon in Paris. Rousseau's Emile (1762) had previously been forbidden and publicly burned, but became the basis of a new national system of education.^[121] His picture was the only one to grace the home of German philosopher Immanuel Kant.

Some of his theories continue to be controversial, such as his idea of the general will, which has been accused of both fascism and socialism. His critique of private property in works like Discourse on Inequality (1755) has been seen as a forebear to Marxist ideology.

Étienne-Gabriel Morelly (1717–1778) was mistaken for Rousseau. Gabriel Bonnot de Mably (1709–1785) was influenced by Rousseau. Both influence socialism.^[122] Victor d'Hupay (1746–1818) coined the term communism.

Diderot

Denis Diderot (1713–1784) was a key collaborator of the Encyclopédistes working on the creation of the Encyclopédia, with mathematician Jean le Rond d’Alembert (1717–1783) and publisher André Le Breton (1708–1779). A systematic collection of all the information of the arts and sciences, the Encyclopédia caused great controversy. Diderot was harassed repeatedly by the police, and was even arrested.^[123] The ecclesiastical party disliked the Encyclopédia, which was a threat to the aristocracy because it asserted that the state should take care of the people and not itself, religious freedom, freedom of thought and the value of science and industry.^[124] In the end, Le Breton began removing all articles he deemed controversial in fear of punishment. The Encyclopédia that Diderot had worked on for twenty years was ruined beyond repair.^[125]

Diderot was influenced by naturalists like the Comte de Buffon (1707–1788), and influenced Jean-Baptiste Robinet (1735–1820).^[126] Jean-Baptiste-Claude Delisle de Sales (1741–1816) wrote The Philosophy of Nature (1770).

D'Alembert was the teacher of Marquis de Condorcet (1743–1794) who supported free markets and equality, including for women. His wife Sophie de Condorcet ran a salon.^[127] Benjamin Constant (1767–1830) attended, and was a critic of Rousseau.^[127] Constant was a liberal and a collaborator with Madame de Staël (1766–1817).

Sensationalism

Influenced by Locke and Voltaire, Catholic priest Étienne Bonnot de Condillac (1714–1780) founded the philosophy of sensationalism.^[128] Idéologues Antoine Destutt de Tracy (1754–1836), physiologist Pierre Jean Georges Cabanis (1757–1808), and Pierre Laromiguière (1756–1837) were followers of Condillac.

Materialism

Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709–1751) was a physician and materialist, best known for his L'homme machine (Man a Machine, 1747). La Mettre took Descartes' doctrine that animals are machines and also applied it to people, arguing against immortal souls. He had to flee France and settle in Berlin.^[129]

Claude Adrien Helvétius (1715–1771) was also a materialist, and argued against Montesquieu's climate theory. Helvétius published the sensationalist De l'esprit (On Mind) (1758), which said that the only real motive is self-interest, therefore there is no good and evil, only competitive pleasures. Its non-religious, utilitarian and egalitarian doctrines raised a public outcry, and the Sorbonne publicly burned it in 1759, forcing Helvétius to issue several retractions.^[130]

Baron d'Holbach (1723–1789) was a materialist who promoted atheism and ran a salon, which helped in the dissemination of "Protestant and especially German thought".^[131] He wrote The System of Nature (1770) and The Universal Morality (1776). Jacques-André Naigeon (1738–1810) was another atheist.

Traditionalism

The sensationalists were opposed by Christian traditionalists like Louis de Bonald (1754–1840) who believed in revelation, and Félicité de La Mennais (1782–1854) who was a skeptic.^[132]

The deism and atheism was combated by Pascal-influenced Catholics like Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet and Nicolas-Sylvestre Bergier (1718–1790), who influenced Counter-Enlightenment and conservative figure Joseph de Maistre (1753–1821), who influenced Ultramontanism.^[133][134]

Revolution

The French Revolution started and adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789) authored by Abbé Sieyès, who also wrote the pamphlet What Is the Third Estate? (1789). Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) and Jean-Paul Marat (1743–1793) were radical Jacobin leaders and Montagnards who supported the sans-culottes. Both Robespierre and Marat were elected as deputies to the National Convention. Robespierre was appointed a member of the Committee of Public Safety and Marat a member of the Committee of General Security; both formed the provisional government during the Reign of Terror (c. 1793-1794).^[135]

Marat was assassinated in his bathtub by reactionary Charlotte Corday. She was soon executed by the guillotine on the Place de Grève.^[136] A few months later, so were Queen Marie Antoinette and Olympe de Gouges (1748–1793), author of Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen (1791).^[136]

Despite Catholic Red Priests like Jacques Roux (1752–1794), an enragé and elected member of the Paris Commune, the French Revolution was opposed to the Church. During the Terror, before the Revolutionary Tribunal could try Jacques Roux, he committed suicide.^[137] Condorcet died in prison after a period of hiding from the authorities, and wrote Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind (1795). French materialism and the Revolution influenced the Marquis de Sade (1740–1814), namesake of sadism and writer of such works as Philosophy in the Boudoir (1795).^[138]

Revolutionaries like Antoine-François Momoro (1756–1794) supported atheism and the Cult of Reason; Robespierre supported deism and started the Cult of the Supreme Being.^[139] The National Convention decreed a rotating series of holidays would occur every décadi, the ten-day week in the new French Republican Calendar. Robespierre declared that 20 Prairial Year II (8 June 1794, also the Christian holiday of Pentecost) would be the first day of national celebration of the Festival of the Supreme Being.

The Convention turned against Robespierre, and he was arrested without trial and executed by guillotine on the Place de la Révolution. There was then the Thermidorian Reaction and the First White Terror.

The Conspiracy of the Equals was led by François-Noël Babeuf (1760–1797), who was influenced by Abbé de Mably.^[140] The group published The Manifesto of the Equals (1796).

Saint-Simonianism

The philosophy of French revolutionary Henri de Saint-Simon (1760–1825) birthed Saint-Simonianism which believed in science's ability to transform society, in works such as his Introduction to scientific discoveries of the 19th century (1803) and his Notes on the study of man (1813), the latter of which is a eulogy to Napoleon,^[143][g] who ended the Revolution with the Coup of 18 Brumaire (9 November 1799), establishing himself as head of the Consulate and eventually Emperor of the French. Saint-Simon was also a Christian writing Le Nouveau Christianisme (The New Christianity) (1825).^[144]

Saint-Simon's intellectual rival was mathematician and physicist Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749–1827). Known as the "French Newton", he argued for determinism with Laplace's demon.^[145] André-Marie Ampère (1775–1836) was one of the founders of classical electromagnetism. Influenced by Condorcet, Antoine Augustin Cournot (1801–1877) tried to unite the concepts of cause and chance.^[146]

Eclecticism

Victor Cousin founded eclecticism.

Maine de Biran influenced spiritualism.

Pierre Paul Royer-Collard (1763–1845) was leader of the Doctrinaires group during the Bourbon Restoration (1814–1830). He brought Scottish common sense realism to France,^[147] shown in his pupil Victor Cousin (1792–1867). Cousin had also learned under Laromiguière at École Normale Supérieure, and was influenced by Kant and German idealism as well. Cousin is the founder of eclecticism.^[132]

A student of Cousin was Théodore Jouffroy (1796–1842), also influenced by Scottish philosophy. Adolphe Garnier (1801–1864) continued Jouffroy's work. Garnier's Treatise on the Faculties of the Soul (1852) won the Montyon Prize.^[148]

Spiritualism

French spiritualism was influenced by Maine de Biran (1766–1824), at first a follower of Condillac, but who became a mystical theosophist influenced by Pascal.^[149] Maine de Biran's diary covers the melancholy and tension of the Hundred Days, Napoleon's exile and return culminating in his final defeat at the Battle of Waterloo (1815), and permanent exile.^[150] An idiosyncratic French philosopher likely influenced by Maine de Biran was Jules Lequier (1814–1862).^[149]

Félix Ravaisson-Mollien (1813–1900) and Jules Lachelier (1832–1918) were also influenced by German idealism, but distinguished their views from Cousin's, preferring spiritualism.^[151] Lachelier taught Jules Lagneau (1851–1894), who taught the "reflexive method", and was a franc-tireur in the Franco-Prussian War (1870). Lachelier also taught Émile Boutroux (1845–1921), a critic of materialism in science. Boutroux influenced Léon Brunschvicg (1869–1944) who in 1893 co-founded the Revue de métaphysique et de morale with Xavier Léon (1868–1935) and Élie Halévy (1870–1937).^[152] Brunschvicg was the husband of Cécile Kahn.

Alfred Jules Émile Fouillée (1838–1912) was a spiritualist who believed in "idea-forces".^[153] Fouillée was the step-father of Jean-Marie Guyau (1854–1888).^[154]

Socialism and anarchism

Saint-Simon influenced the utopian socialism of Charles Fourier (1772–1837) and Fourierism. Fourier influenced Christian and utopian socialist Étienne Cabet (1788–1856), who was a more radical revolutionary than Fourier.^[155][156] Cabet saw Christianity as synonymous with socialism.^[157]

Blanqui

Saint-Simon and the book by Philippe Buonarroti (1761–1837) History of Babeuf’s Conspiracy of Equals (1828) influenced socialist philosopher Louis-Auguste Blanqui (1805–1881), the founder of Blanquism.^[161] Blanquism believes that socialist revolution should involve a coup d'etat by a relatively small group of highly organised and secretive conspirators.^[162] Blanqui participated in the July Revolution of 1830, and was a leading voice in the radical clubs of the Revolution of 1848. Blanqui spent 33 of his life in prison, earning him the nickname L'Enfermé ("The Prisoner").

Auguste Comte

Auguste Comte (1798–1857) was the founder of sociology and the philosophy of positivism, and may be regarded as the first modern philosopher of science.^[165] Comte was also of considerable influence outside of France, impacting the work of thinkers such as Karl Marx and John Stuart Mill.^[166]

Influenced by Fourier and Saint-Simon, Comte developed the positive philosophy to remedy the aftermath of the French Revolution, calling for a new social paradigm based on the sciences. Comte offered an account of social evolution, proposing that society undergoes three phases in its quest for the truth according to a general 'law of three stages'. Comte's stages were (1) the theological, (2) the metaphysical, and (3) the positive.^[167]

While originally a follower of Saint-Simon, Comte traced his own path since he was not a Christian.^[144] He attempted to introduce a cohesive "religion of humanity" which, though largely unsuccessful, was influential for various Secular Humanist organizations in the 19th century. Comte also coined the term "altruism".^[168]

Comte's student Charles Renouvier (1815–1903) was influenced by Lequier, and was a German idealist and personalist. Sociology pioneer Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) read Comte and Renouvier.^[169] Durkheim was a structural functionalist who wrote Suicide (1897).

Ferdinand de Saussure

Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1913) was a Swiss linguist who taught in Paris. He emphasized distinguishing linguistics from philology; the study of the essential underlying structures of language, rather than the history of individual words and comparisons of languages. His small output, such as the Course in General Linguistics (1916), most of which was published posthumously, became the foundations of linguistics, semiotics and structuralism.

Saussure divided language into two parts: the langue, which is the system of signs and rules used by a community, and parole, the individual acts of speech within the given community. This was likened by Saussure to chess rules and chess pieces.^[171]

For Saussure, the essential unit of any language is the word, or sign. Like language, he divides the word into two parts: the signifier, which is the sound-image, and the signified, which is the concept associated with the signifier. Saussure stressed the arbitrariness of this association, maintaining that any signifier can refer to any signified. How a sign obtains its meaning is by what it is not within the langue, not what it is. For example, the word ‘dog’ means dog simply because it does not mean cat, bird, or cornflakes.

Henri Bergson

While Ferdinand de Saussure was a relatively obscure thinker in his time, Henri Bergson (1859–1941) was somewhat of a celebrity. His philosophy appealed both to academics and the general public, leading to the "Bergson boom".^[172] Bergson was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1927.^[173] However, interest in his work greatly decreased after World War II. In the late 20th century came a revitalization of interest in Bergson, through Le Bergsonisme (1966) by Gilles Deleuze.^[174]

Bergson sought to improve on Kant, Lachelier,^[175] and the evolutionary philosophy of Herbert Spencer. All of Bergson’s works were concerned with consciousness. Bergson thought consciousness was always experienced as a multiplicity. He also thought the experience of time was intrinsic to consciousness, calling it "the duration". Bergson regards the duration as a qualitative multiplicity, rather than quantitative; there is heterogeneity but no separation, juxtaposition or mechanistic causality. The duration can only be grasped through intuition.^[176] Bergson coined the term élan vital, establishing vitalism in works like Creation Evolution (1907), and was the French representative of Lebensphilosophie. He notably debated Einstein.

Writers outside of French philosophy influenced by Bergson include the novelist Marcel Proust, poet T. S. Eliot, American philosopher William James, and British philosopher Alfred North Whitehead.

Neo-Thomism

Catholic Léon Bloy influenced neo-Thomism in France, through philosophers such as Bergson student Jacques Maritain. The Neo-Thomists opposed esotericist René Guénon.^[177]

Philosophy of science

Henri Poincaré

Pierre Duhem

In France, philosophy of science, also known as French historical epistemology^[178][179] or French epistemology,^[180] was a prominent school of thought which included Léon Brunschvicg, Henri Poincaré, Pierre Duhem, Gaston Bachelard, Jean Cavaillès, Georges Canguilhem, Jules Vuillemin, Arthur Hannequin, Émile Meyerson, Gaston Milhaud, Alexandre Koyré, Jean-Toussaint Desanti, Gilbert Simondon, Michel Serres, and Jean-Michel Berthelot.^[181]

Others

Gaston Bachelard (1884–1962) introduced the concepts of epistemological obstacle and epistemological break (obstacle épistémologique and rupture épistémologique). Jean Cavaillès (1903–1944) specialized in philosophy of science, and was concerned with the axiomatic method, formalism, set theory and mathematical logic. Georges Canguilhem (1904–1995) reintroduced vitalism into the philosophy of biology. Jules Vuillemin (1920–2001) introduced the concept of the philosophy of algebra and was specialized in philosophy of knowledge.^[j]

Alain

Alain (1868–1951) was taught by Lagneau, and himself taught Simone Weil and Georges Canguilhem. Alain supported the Radical Party.^[187]

Simone Weil (1909–1943) was a French philosopher, mystic and political activist who greatly influenced 20th century philosophy including influencing Pope Paul VI. Her notable ideas include decreation (renouncing the gift of free will as a form of acceptance of everything that is independent of one's particular desires; making "something created pass into the uncreated"), uprootedness (déracinement), obligations as the basis of rights, attention as compassion, patriotism of compassion, abolition of political parties, the unjust character of affliction (malheur), and that compassion must act in the area of metaxy.^[188] Weil influenced René Girard.

Sorelianism

The revolutionary syndicalist, and friend of anarchist Fernand Pelloutier, Georges Sorel (1847–1922) founded Sorelianism. Sorel was an advocate of violence and a believer in the power of myth, who wrote Reflections on Violence (1908). He was influenced by Proudhon and Bergson's Lebensphilosophie.^[189]

Phenomenology

Phenomenology can be defined as a way of philosophizing which involves descriptive explanations of phenomena as it is given to consciousness and how it is given to consciousness, which attempts to avoid imposed explanations. In France, phenomenology was influenced by Lebensphilosophie and seen as a radical Cartesianism which rejected substance dualism to better understand consciousness. Phenomenology is still an important area of research in France today.^[190] It also influenced existentialism and many postmodern philosophers' thought.^[k]

Lévinas

Emmanuel Lévinas (1906–1995) was one of the first to introduce phenomenology to France, through his translation of Husserl’s Cartesian Meditations. Lévinas considered ethics primary in philosophy and once proclaimed that it precedes metaphysics and should be considered the first philosophy. He developed a moral philosophy based around notions of the other and the face which introduced ethics into phenomenology^[l]

Existentialism and Absurdism

Existentialism was a prominent school of thought in the first half of the 20th century. Traditionally, existentialism is concerned with the human condition, exploring such topics as purpose, freedom and the experience of the other. It can trace its roots back to philosophers such as Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger, as well as Lebensphilosophie, but bloomed with the thought of French phenomenologist Jean-Paul Sartre.

Sartre

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980) was a libertarian Marxist who saw his existentialism as drawing all the conclusions from a consistent line of atheism. He was a spokesman for a generation,^[191] but his influence waned with the advent of structuralism. His major thesis is that existence precedes essence, first stated in Existentialism Is a Humanism (1946).^[192] An artisan devises an essence for a material object, such as a knife, say for the purpose of slicing bread. However, without God, there is no artisan who developed the essence of man for a purpose. So man is born free, thrown into the world where sole responsibility for his actions rests on his shoulders, then through his actions he defines the essence of not only himself, but of what he believes man ought to be. The denial of this responsibility through excuses is what Sartre termed bad faith.

Sartre responded to Heidegger's Being and Time (1927) with Being and Nothingness (1943). He also wrote the novel Nausea (1938) about alienation. His play No Exit (1944) is the source of the quote "Hell is other people."

Gabriel Marcel (1889–1973), a Christian who wrote The Mystery of Being (1951) tried to distance himself from similarities to Sartre's works, preferring "philosophy of existence" to existentialism.

French philosophy also influenced the Caribbean. Trinidadian Marxist C. L. R. James (1901–1989) wrote The Black Jacobins (1938) about the Haitian Revolution.^[193] Sartre, James, and négritude poet Aimé Cesaire influenced Martinican Pan-Africanist Frantz Fanon (1925–1961), supporter of the Algerian War and author of Black Skin, White Masks (1952).^[194][195] The Frantz Fanon prize is awarded by the Caribbean Philosophical Association.^[196]

Beauvoir

Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) was an existential feminist. Beauvoir in works like The Second Sex (1949) believed that men had surrounded women in a false aura of mystery, stereotyping them into "the other" and an underclass, as an excuse for not understanding them and dominating them. But Beauvoir maintains that Sartre’s thesis (that is, existence precedes essence) applies to women as much as it does to men and that through their choices and actions, women can transcend this aura and reject being the underclass.^[200]

Structuralism

French Structuralism played a major role in intellectual thought after World War II. It rejected existential concepts of freedom for the idea of man as determined by structures. However, by the end of the century it was seen as important not by itself, but for the schools of thought it produced, such as poststructuralism and deconstruction.

Structuralism finds its roots in the thought of Ferdinand de Saussure, who thought language could be studied synchronically, i.e. as a complete system within a frozen moment of time, or it can be studied diachronically, examining its historical development. It can be said that structuralists focused on the synchronic aspects of culture, while poststructuralists, focused on the diachronic aspects.^[201]

Barthes

Roland Barthes (1915–1980) was a literary critic and semiologist who applied structuralism to literary theory. In Mythologies (1957), Barthes explored articles, advertisements, movies, etc. to demonstrate the deep-seated bourgeois propaganda found within. He described these myths as second-order signs, assigning or associating signifiers to signifiers, such as a bottle signifying wine also signifying high class.

Poststructuralism and postmodernism

The second half of the 20th century saw the rise of so-called postmodern thought. This rise was especially noticeable in France. However, the term is fairly hard to define. In fact, some people maintain that it is nothing but a slur applied to a group of disparate philosophers wrongly grouped together. However, it can also be seen as a critique of modernity and traditional western thought, particularly dichotomies and the belief in progress, influenced heavily by structuralism, phenomenology and existentialism.

Foucault

Michel Foucault (1926–1984) maintained a similar scepticism about absolutes, such as right and wrong, sane and insane, and human nature. His method was not to deny such notions, but to historicize them, examining what in the supposedly necessary may be contingent, and demonstrating the relationships between power, politics, and knowledge.

Foucault was anti-Hegelian and anti-teleological in his historical excavations. Foucault's four-volume The History of Sexuality introduced the concept of biopower. His early works like The Order of Things (1966) used an "archaeological method" or episteme, while his later work used a "genealogical method" or dispositif.^[204]

His main fields of investigation were psychiatry, medicine, and institutions. Through his examinations of psychiatry in Madness and Civilization (1961), he showed that the development of psychiatry was not an obvious improvement on previous treatments of the insane, and that furthermore, the apparent scientific neutrality of psychiatric treatments hides the fact that they are a form of controlling defiance of bourgeois society.^[205] Foucault introduced the idea of a disciplinary institution in Discipline and Punish (1975).

Derrida

Jacques Derrida (1930–2004) believed Western philosophy had become phonocentric. Derrida in works like Of Grammatology (1967) developed deconstruction as a response to structuralism. Deconstruction takes a text, examines binary oppositions within it from several different interpreting standpoints, and then attempts to show them to be dependent upon one another, unstable, ambiguous and historically and culturally defined. This method is called différance.^[206] Through showing the fluidity of the dichotomies, deconstruction shows the fluidity of the text. Derrida maintained that no meaning is stable, not even the dichotomies classical philosophers took for granted. Through an internal logic, the text deconstructs itself and hence allows highly original interpretations.

Feminism

Hélène Cixous (born 1937) developed a feminist interpretation of post-structuralism most influenced by Derrida.^[210] She argued that patriarchal cultures build male domination into their language and literary canon, and that a feminist revolution must account for this. She urged female writers to adopt deconstructionist methods and forward their own vision of life as a woman.

Luce Irigaray (born 1930) is also a feminist, post-structuralist ostracized by the followers of Lacan. She is considered one of the founders of French difference feminism.^[211]