Émile Boutroux | |
|---|---|
 Émile Boutroux, French philosopher | |
| Born | Étienne Émile Marie Boutroux (1845-07-28)28 July 1845 |
| Died | 22 November 1921(1921-11-22) (aged 76) Paris, France |
| Alma mater | École normale supérieure Heidelberg University |
| Era | 19th-century philosophy |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| School | French spiritualism[1] |
| Institutions | University of Nancy University of Paris |
Main interests | Philosophy of religion |
Notable ideas | Religion and science are compatible Thecontingent character of the laws of nature[2] |
Étienne Émile Marie Boutroux (/buːˈtruː/;French:[butʁu]; 28 July 1845 – 22 November 1921) was an eminent 19th-centuryFrenchphilosopher ofscience andreligion, and a historian ofphilosophy. He was a firm opponent ofmaterialism in science. He was a spiritual philosopher who defended the idea that religion and science are compatible at a time when the power of science was rising inexorably. His work is overshadowed in the English-speaking world by that of the more celebratedHenri Bergson. He was elected membership of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences in 1898 and in 1912 to theAcadémie française.
Émile Boutroux was born atMontrouge,[3] now in theHauts-de-Seinedépartement, nearParis. He attended the lycée Napoléon (nowlycée Henri IV), and graduated in 1865 to theÉcole Normale Supérieure. He then continued his education atHeidelberg University between 1869 and 1870 where he was taught byHermann von Helmholtz and encountered German philosophy. In 1874 he defended two doctoral theses:[4] one, "De Veritatibus aeternis apud Cartesium" ("On Eternal Truths According to Descartes"), under the supervision ofFélix Ravaisson;[5] and the other, "De la contingence des lois de la nature" ("The Contingency of the Laws of Nature"), underJules Lachelier.[6]
His first employment was the post of philosophy professor at thelycée inCaen.
Between 1874 and 1876 Boutroux taught at the Faculty of Letters at theUniversity of Nancy and while there he fell in love with and married Aline Poincaré the sister of the scientist and mathematicianHenri Poincaré. In 1880 his son, Pierre, was born.Pierre Boutroux was himself to become a distinguished mathematician and historian of science.
In 1888 Boutroux was made professor of history of modern philosophy at theSorbonne in Paris.
He was elected a member of Academy of the Moral and Political Sciences in 1898 and in 1902 he became Director of the Thiers Foundation, a residency for France's brightest students. He was elected to theAcadémie Française in 1912.
Boutroux died in November 1921.[7]
Translations
Posthumous
Works in English translation
Selected articles
A particular form of spiritualism, frequently called neo-spiritualism, is that formulated by the French philosopher Jules Lachelier (CE 1834-1918), who was the teacher of the French philosophers Emile Boutroux (CE 1845-1921) and Henri Bergson (CE 1859-1941), both of whom are often also considered to exemplify neo- spiritualism. Lachelier advocated a form of spiritual realism whereby the spirit and spontaneity of humans provided an alternative to both idealism and materialism.
