CARO, EDME-MARIE. - Philosopher, b. at Poitiers on 4 March 1826, d. at Paris on 13 July 1887. A brilliant mind and forceful polemicist, he was one of the most widely heard professors at the Sorbonne in the second half of the nineteenth century.
The tendency of his philosophy is spiritualist-apologetic, as is particularly shown by his work L'idée de Dieu et ses nouveaux critiques (1864, 4th ed. 1873), in which he defends Christian theodicy against the doctrines of Vacherot, Renan, and Taine; he does not, however, always succeed in freeing himself from the eclectic school to which he adhered by education and method. In Problèmes de morale sociale (1878), C. criticizes the positivist, naturalist, and evolutionist positions of many of his contemporaries. Other works by him: Le matérialisme et la science (1868); Le pessimisme au XIXe siècle (1878); Littré et le positivisme (1880), etc.
(phot. Bildarchiv d. Ö. Nationalbibliothek)