19th Century French Philosophy

Recent discussions of structuralist approaches to scientific theories have stemmed primarily from Worrall's, in which he defends a position whose historical roots he attributes to Poincare. In the renewed debate inspired by Worrall, it is thus not uncommon to find Poincare's name associated with various structuralist positions. However, Poincare's structuralism is deeply entwined with both his conventionalism and his idealism, and in this paper we explore the nature of these dependencies. What comes out in the end is not only a (...) clearer picture of Poincare's position regarding structuralism, but also two arguments for versions of epistemic structuralism different in kind from that given by Worrall. (shrink)

In response to Robert H. Bass's charge that no significant moral thinker ever advocated altruism as Ayn Rand defined it, Campbell points to the writings of Auguste Comte, who invented the word. For Comte, altruism meant living for others, repressing one's "personality," and subordinating oneself to "the Great Being, Humanity." Rand's own conception of altruism was thoroughly Comtean. What's more, her decision (made in 1942, while completing The Vountainhtad) to use "altruism" as her primary term for the moral tendencies that (...) she opposed was plausibly occasioned by an encounter with Comte's ideas. (shrink)

Summary This article looks at a specific case of intellectual exchange by approaching Luís Pereira Barreto (1840?1923), a Brazilian medic who, having studied in Brussels in the 1850s, came into contact with Comte's positivism and with the ideas of his disciples. While in Europe, Barreto established a long-lasting friendship with Pierre Lafitte, and became a convert to Comte's Religion of Humanity. Upon his return to Brazil in 1864, Barreto sought to apply Comte's principles to Brazilian society and politics. Although Barreto's (...) use of positivism extends beyond the issue of slavery and slave work, I will focus on this priest of humanity's considerations about positivism, social evolutionism, and Brazilian slavery. This will allow me to extrapolate some qualified conclusions about the nature of the intellectual exchange that occurred between Barreto and the French positivists, and the development of Brazilian positivism as a political philosophy and social theory which had to address the problem of slavery in the 1870s and 1880s. (shrink)

Stendhal.--Tocqueville.--Proudhon.--Sainte-Beuve.--Taine.--Renan.

This volume of twelve essays focuses on two interrelated issues. First it addresses the historical and cultural determinants that have given rise to what frequently has been described as 'the French exception': the unusually conflictual French political process inherited from the revolutionary past in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and its accompanying avant-gardism in artistic, literary and philosophical practice, both of which distinguish France from other European countries. Second, the contributors assess the exhaustion of this tradition in recent years - (...) noted prominently on the occasion of the celebration of the bicentennial of the Revolution in 1989 - in a progressive 'normalization' of French society that has been the final outcome of the liquidation of the colonial empire, the collapse of Marxism as a social force. (shrink)

In the case of Jean-Marie Guyau, declared humanist and sociologist, there is the debt of a French thinker to English thought, ...

Jules Michelet Historian, Philosopher, Naturalist A vast, all-embracing literary personality dominates Michelet's works: that of the author. ...

Le positivisme, de Comte à Carnap, a marqué une étape dans le développement d’une science spéciale en dehors des sujets traités jusque là par la philosophie. Cette communication montre que la « syntaxe logique » de Carnap comme la « synthèse subjective » de Comte est un hybride, — une tranche de la philosophie en train de devenir science, et essayant, à l’étape intermédiaire de son processus, d’être à la fois science et philosophie.

INTRODUCTION Three years ago, at the suggestion of Professor Jacques Etienne of Institut Superieur de Philosophie, a probing mission into the problem of ...

In this study of space and power and knowledge in France from the 1830s through the 1930s, Rabinow uses the tools of anthropology, philosophy, and cultural criticism to examine how social environment was perceived and described. Ranging from epidemiology to the layout of colonial cities, he shows how modernity was revealed in urban planning, architecture, health and welfare administration, and social legislation.