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Émile Boutroux
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 November 2011
Extract
By the death, on November 22, 1921, of Émile Boutroux, France lost one of her most distinguished sons; the world, a mind of rare philosophic insight and power. Born, July 28, 1845, in a period of materialism and scientific dogmatism, Boutroux was a courageous and far-seeing leader, recalling men to the life of the spirit, and to a true estimate of the human soul.
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- Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1923
References
1 De la Contingence des Lois de la Nature. Translated into English by Rothwell, 1916.
2 Ravaisson, also, had protested against the rigid, all-inclusive mechanism of science, on the ground that it sought to reduce everything to a quantitative identity, and thus found no place in its scheme for variety, spontaneity, and creation.
3 Secrétan declared, “I am what I will.” Ruggiero observes, “The unconditioned affirmation of the principle of liberty which we find in Secrétan is of great importance in the history of French thought, for it expresses a presentiment … of subsequent developments.” Modern Philosophy, p. 136.
4 La Fontaine, La Philosophie d'Émile Boutroux, p. 58. Compare also Gaultier, Les Maîtres de la Pensée Française, p. 47.
5 Études d'Histoire de la Philosophie pp. 8–9.
6 Author's preface to Rothwell's translation of De l'Idée de Loi Naturelle dans la Science et la Philosophie Contemporaine.
7 Contingency of the Laws of Nature, translated by Rothwell, pp. 192, 195. Similarly, Hegel: “The habit of right and goodness is an embodiment of liberty” (The Philosophy of Mind, par. 410).
8 Yesterday the ‘atom’ seemed to be such a quantity; today it may be the ‘electron’; tomorrow perhaps ‘ectoplasm.’
9 ‘Hasard ou Liberté?’ Fourth of a series of eight lectures delivered by M. Boutroux at Harvard University, 1910, under the title ‘Contingence et Liberté.’ Published in Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale, XVIII, 2, 1910, pp. 137–146.Google Scholar
10 Ibid. p. 142.
11 Ibid. p. 143.
12 For an extreme point of view, see John B. Watson, “Psychology from the Standpoint of the Behaviorist,” 1919. For this writer thought is merely the “action of language mechanisms”; “thought processes are really motor habits in the larynx”; reasoning is a special form of language habit.
13 Bosanquet, The Principle of Individuality and Value, p. 33.
14 Science and Culture, p. 21.
15 The Principle of Individuality and Value, p. 40.
16 Hasard ou Liberté? p. 146.
17 Contingency of the Laws of Nature, Rothwell's translation, p. 163.
18 Compare Aristotle's conception of the development of the ψνχή. Also Hegel takes essentially the same position, Philosophy of Mind, par. 380.
19 Compare Hegel, Philosophy of Bight, par. 47, Add.
20 ‘Du Rapport de la Philosophic aux Sciences,’ Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale, XIX, 4, 1911, pp. 417–435Google Scholar.
21 Contingency of the Laws of Nature, Rothwell's translation, pp. 179, 180, 181.
22 Science and Religion in Contemporary Philosophy, Nield's translation, p. 388.
23 Ibid. p. 378.
24 Compare Kant: “So act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of any other, in every case as an end withal, never as a means only” (Metaphysic of Morals, Abbott's translation, p. 47).
25 Science and Religion in Contemporary Philosophy, Nield's translation, pp. 397, 398.
26 Ibid. p. 381.