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A HISTORY
OF
PHILOSOPHY
VOLUME IX
Modern Philosophy: From
the French Revolution to
Sartre, Camus, and
Levi-Strauss
Frederick Copleston, S.J.
IMAGE BOOKS
DOUBLEDAY
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A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY
by
Frederick Copleston, S.J.
AN IMAGE BOOK
PUBLISHED BY DOUBLEDAY
a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.
1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036
VOLUME I: GREECE AND ROME
From the Pre-Socratics to Plotinus
VOLUME II: MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY
From Augustine to Duns Scotus
VOLUME III: LATE MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE PHILOSOPHY
Ockham, Francis Bacon, and the Beginning of the Modern World
VOLUME IV: MODERN PHILOSOPHY
From Descartes to Leibniz
VOLUME V: MODERN PHILOSOPHY
The British Philosophers from Hobbes to Hume
VOLUME VI: MODERN PHILOSOPHY
From the French Enlightenment to Kant
VOLUME VII: MODERN PHILOSOPHY
From the Post-Kantian Idealists to Marx, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche
VOLUME VIII: MODERN PHILOSOPHY
EmpiriCism, Idealism, and Pragmatism in Britain and America
VOLUME IX: MODERN PHILOSOPHY
From the French Revolution to Sartre, Camus, and Levi-Strauss
IMAGE, DOUBLEDAY, and the portrayal of a deer drinking from a stream are
trademarks of Doubleday, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell
Publishing Group, Inc.
First Image Books edition of Volume IX of
A History ofPhilosophy
published
1977 by special arrangement with The Newman Press and Burns
&
Oates, Ltd.
This Image edition published March 1994.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Copleston, Frederick Charles.
A history of philosophy.
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
Contents: v. 1. Greece and Rome-[etc.]-
v. 7. From the post-Kantian idealists to Marx,
Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche-v. 8. Empiricism, idealism,
and pragmatism in Britain and America-v. 9. From the
French Revolution to Sartre, Camus, and Levi-Strauss.
1. Philosophy-History.
I.
Title.
B72.C62 1993
190
92-34997
ISBN 0-385-47046-0
Volume IX copyright
©
1974 by Frederick Copleston
All Rights Reserved
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
1 3 5 7 9
10 8 6 4 2
CONTENTS
v
VIII. THE SPIRITUALIST MOVEMENT
The term 'spiritualism'-The philosophy of Ravaisson-
J. Lachelier and the bases of induction-Boutroux and contin-
gency-A. Fouillee on
idees-f01'ces-M.
J. Guyau and the
philosophy of life.
ISS
CONTENTS
Page
Chapter
IX. HENRI BERGSON
(I)
178
VII
PREFACE.
Life and works-Bergson's idea of philosophy-Time and
freedom-Memory and perception: the relation between spirit
and matter-Instinct, intelligence and intuition in the context
of the theory of evolution.
PART I
FROM THE REVOLUTION TO AUGUSTE COMTE
X. HENRI BERGSON (2)
Introductory remarks-Closed morality-Open morality:
the interpretation of the two types-Static religion as a
defence against the dissolvent power of intelligence-Dynamic
religion and mysticism-Comments.
202
I. THE TRADITIONALIST REACTION TO THE
REVOLUTION
Introductory remarks-De Maistre-De Bonald-Chateau-
briand-Lamennais-Traditionalism and the Church.
I
II. THE IDEOLOGISTS AND MAINE DE BIRAN
The ideologists-Maine de Biran: life and writings-Philo-
sophical development-Psychology and knowledge-Levels
of human life.
19
PART III
FROM BERGSON TO SARTRE
XI. PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIAN ApOLOGETICS
Olle-Laprune on moral certitude-l'3londel and the way of
immanence-Laberthonniere and Christian philosophy-Some
remarks on modernism.
216
37
III. ECLECTICISM
The label-Royer-Collard-Cousin-Jouffroy.
51
IV. SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY.
General remarks-The utopianism of Fourier-Saint-Simon
and the development of society-Proudhon: anarchism and
syndicalism-Marx on the French socialists.
XII. THOMISM IN FRANCE
250
Introductory remarks: D. J. Mercier-Garrigou-Lagrange and
Sertillanges-J. Maritain-E. Gilson-P. Rousselot and
A. Forest-J. Marechal.
74
V. AUGUSTE COMTE
Life and writings-The three stages in human development-
The classification and methodology of the sciences-Tasks of
the philosopher in the positive era-The science of man: social
statics and social dynamics-The Great Being and the religion
of humanity.
XIII. PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE .
271
H. Poincare-Po Duhem-G. Milhaud-E. Meyerson-
A. Lalande-G. Bachelard.
XIV. PHILOSOPHY OF VALUES, METAPHYSICS,
PERSONALISM .
293
PART II
FROM AUGUSTE COMTE TO HENRI BERGSON
General remarks--R. Polin-Metaphysics of values: R. Le
Senne and the philosophy of spirit-R. Ruyer and J. Pucelle-
L. Lavelle and the philosophy of act-The personalism of
E. Mounier.
VI. POSITIVISM IN FRANCE
E. Littrc and his criticism of Comte-C. Bernard and the
experimental method-E. Renan: positivism and religion-
H. Taine and the possibility of metaphysics-K Durkheim and
the development of sociology-L. Levy-Bruhl and morals.
99
XV. Two RELIGIOUS THINKERS
Teilhard de Chardin-G. Marcel-Differences in outlook.
3
18
XVI. THE EXISTENTIALISM OF SARTRE (1) .
Life and writings-Pre-reflective and reflexive consciousness:
the imagining and the emotive consciousness-Phenomenal
being and being in itself-Being for itself-The freedom of
being for itself-Consciousness of others-Atheism and values.
34
0
VII. NEO-CRITICISM AND IDEALISM
132
Cournot and inquiry into basic concepts-The neo-criticism and
personalism of Renouvier-Hamelin and idealist metaphysics
-Brunschvicg and the mind's reflection on its own activity.
IV
vi
CONTENTS
XVII.
THE EXISTENTIALISM OF SARTRE (2) .
Sartre and Marxism--The aims of the Critique-Individual
praxis-The
anti-diale~tic
and the.
~omination
of the practico-
inert-The group and Its fate--Cnbcal comments.
XVIII.
THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF MERLEAU-PONTY
PREFACE
390
THE seventh and eighth volumes of this work were originally
intended to cover nineteenth-century philosophy
in
Germany and
in Great Britain respectively. The seventh volume conforms to
this plan, inasmuch as it ends with a treatment of Nietzsche who
died in 1900 and whose period of literary activity falls entirely
within the nineteenth century. The eighth volume however
includes treatments of G. E. Moore, Bertrand Russell and the
American philosopher John Dewey. All three were born in the
nineteenth century; and both Dewey and Russell had published
before the tum of the century. But all were active well on into the
twentieth century. Indeed, Russell was still alive when the volume
was published and was able to make an appreciative comment in a
letter to the author. The present ninth volume carries even
further this tendency to go beyond the limits of nineteenth-
century thought. It was originally intended to cover French
philosophy between the revolution and the death of Henri
Bergson. In point of fact it includes a fairly extensive treatment of
Jean-Paul Sartre, a briefer outline of some of Merleau-Ponty's
ideas and some remarks on the structuralism of Levi-Strauss.
This extension of the account of French philosophy after the
revolution to include a number of thinkers whose literary activity
falls within the twentieth century and some of whom at any rate
are still alive has meant that I have been unable to fulfil my
original plan of including within the present volume treatments
of nineteenth-century thought in Italy, Spain and Russia.
Reference has been made to one or two Belgian thinkers, such as
Joseph Marechal; but otherwise I have restricted the area to
France. Indeed, it is more accurate to saythat I have treated of
French philosophers than of philosophy in France as a geographi-
cal area.· For example, Nikolai Berdyaev settled at Paris in 1924
and pursued a vigorous literary activity on French soil. But it
seems to me improper to annex him for France. He belongs to
the religious tradition in Russian thought. There may indeed be
more reason for annexing Berdyaev for French philosophy than
there would be for counting Karl Marx as a British philosopher
on the ground that he spent his last years in London and
worked in the British Museum. At the same time the Russian
VII
A. Camus: the absurd and the philosophy of revolt-Merleau-
Ponty: the body-subject and its world-Merleau-Ponty and
l\Iarxism-Uvi-Strauss and man.
A
SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY.
419
INDEX
469
PREFACE
ix
read. The reader presumably wishes to hear something about
thinkers who have enjoyed some prominence in France, even if
they are pretty well unknown in England. Indeed, if their names
are little known: in· England, this could be advanced as an excel-
lent reason for including them. The thought of Louis Lavelle, for
instance, would doubtless have left G. E. Moore in a state of
mystification; and it would hardly have commended itself to
J.
L. Austin. But this is no more a reason for omitting Lavelle
from an account of recent French philosophy than the lack of
sympathy which many French philosophers would probably
have with
J.
L.
Austin's preoccupation with ordinary
lan~uage
would constitute a valid reason for omitting Austin's name
from an account of recent philosophical thought in Great
Britain.
At the same time it must be admitted that there are gaps in the
present volume. This is partly due of course to considerations of
space. But it is only honest to add that it is partly due to the
circumstances in which this volume has been written.
If
one
is
Principal of a School of the University of London, one's time for
reading and research is inevitably very limited. And one has to use
for writing such intervals as may occur. I have doubtless tended
to write about philosophers of whom I already knew something
andhave omitted thinker.s who might well have been included.
This might be considered a very sound reason for postponing
completion of the work. As however I have already indicated, I
wish
to use the time which retirement may put at my disposal for
a rather different sort of volume.
Even when one has decided, for good or
ill,
on the philosophers
about whom one intends to write, there may well be problems of
classification or labelling. For example, in the present work Jules
Lachelier has been considered in the chapter devoted to what is
customarily described as the spiritualist movement. Though
howev~r
there is precedent for doing this, Lachelier's best-known
work
is
a treatise on the foundations of induction; and it might
thus be thought more appropriate to put his ideas under the head-
ing of philosophy of science. At the same time he develops his
ideas in such a way as to outline a philosophy which would qualify
him for classification as an idealist. Again, while Meyerson has
been considered in the text as a philosopher of science,
his
theory
of identity might equally well be treated as a speculative philo-
sophy of the idealist type.
viii
PREFACE
writers who lived and wrote in exile in France remained Russian
thinkers.
If
we leave foreign exiles out of account, France is in any case
rich in philosophical writers, both professional philosophers and
literary figures whose writings can be described as having philo-
sophical significance. Unless however the historian proposes to
write a complete comprehensive survey, which would amount to
little more than a list of names or require several tomes, he cannot
include them all. There are of course philosophers who obviously
have to be included in any account of French philosophy since the
revolution. Maine de Biran, Auguste Comte and Henri Bergson
are examples.
It
is also clear that discussion of a given movement
of thought entails reference to its leading representatives. What-
ever may be one's estimate of Victor Cousin's merits as a thinker,
it would be absurd to write about eclecticism in France without
saying something about its chief representative, especially in
view of the position which he occupied for a time in the academic
life of his country. Similarly, an account of neo-criticism involves
some discussion of Renouvier's thought. Though however there
is a considerable number of philosophers whom the historian would
rightly be expected to include, either because of their intrinsic
interest and their reputation, contemporary or posthumous, or as
representatives of a given movement of thought, there are plenty
of others among whom he has to make a selection..And any
selection is open to criticism on some ground or other. Thus in
regard to the present volume some readers may be inclined to think
that space has been allotted to cloudy metaphysicians and
idealists which might have been more profitably devoted to
philosophy of education or to aesthetics, or to a more extended
treatment of social philosophy. Again,
if
a religious thinker such
as Teilhard de Chardin is to be given prominence, why is there no
mention of Simone Weil, a very different sort of writer, it is true,
but one who has been widely read? Further, in view of the fact
that the volume includes a treatment not only of nineteenth-
century French political thinkers but also of Sartre's version of
Marxism, why is nothing said, for example, about Bertrand de
Jouvenel and Raymond Aron?
In the cases of some philosophers it may be relevant to point
out that reputation and influence in their own country may very
well justify their inclusion, in spite of the fact that in a country
with a different philosophical tradition they are little known or
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