LACHELIER, JULES. - Philosopher, b. 27 May 1832 at Fontainebleau, d. there 18 Jan. 1918. Professor at the Lycée of Caen (1864), he subsequently taught (1864-75) at the École normale supérieure.
Under the influence of Biran and Ravaisson, L. developed Kantian transcendental idealism in the direction of a spiritualistic realism. The true, profound and organic unity in the world of phenomena is not given by purely mathematical laws, but rather by the law of finality, whereby nature posits itself as a set of unitary teleological systems. Thought is therefore immanent in nature (force and movement), tending finalistically toward its full expression in consciousness. This teleological explanation makes room for freedom and suggests as a religious conclusion the existence of a superior Principle of thought and of reality, as a demand of the « passage from the formal absolute to the real and living absolute, from the idea of God to God ». The ultimate essence of thought, not reached by pure psychological analysis, thus reveals itself, with a tendency toward the overcoming of panpsychism, in metaphysics.
L. influenced, among others, Boutroux and Bergson.
Principal works: De natura syllogismi (Paris 1871); 2nd ed., ibid. 1935; Du fondement de l'induction (doctoral thesis, ibid. 1871; 9th ed., 1907); Psychologie et métaphysique (two essays in Rev. philos., 19 [1885], reprinted in the 2nd ed. of Du fondement de l'induction, ibid. 1896); Etudes sur le syllogisme (ibid. 1907).
Bibliography6 worksG. Sessiles, La philosophie de J. L., Paris 1920; L. Brunschvicg-Marcel, La littérature française contemporaine... (1850-1925), I, ibid. 192
BIBL.: G. Sessiles, La philosophie de J. L., Paris 1920; L. Brunschvicg-Marcel, La littérature française contemporaine... (1850-1925), I, ibid. 1926, ch. 1; E. Boutroux, Nouvelles études d'histoire de la philos., ibid. 1927, p. 131 ff.; A. Tilgher, La filosofia della religione di J. L., in Religio, 11 (1935), pp. 61-66; C. Devivaise, La philosophie religieux de J. L., in Rev. des science, philos. et théol., 28 (1930), pp. 435-64. Further references in W. Ziegenfuss, Philosophen-Lexikon, II, Berlin 1951, pp. 2-3.
Ugo Viglino of the Protestants among his friends; after meeting him, Leibniz wrote to him how « still precious to him was the memory of those moments of conversation ». If Father L. C. was Gallican, he certainly was so in the manner of Bossuet and not in that of the parliamentarians. His mitigated Gallicanism has nothing heterodox about it, and he had no part whatsoever in the drafting of the four articles of 1682 (v. GALLICANESIMO).
BIBL. Sommervogel, II, coll. 1035-40; IX, col. 26; Memoires authentiques du duc de Saint-Simon, ed. edited by P. A. Chéruel, IV, Paris 1856, p. 280 ff.; Régis de Chantelauze, Le p. de L. C., confesseur du roi Louis, Fables and legends, Italian trans., II, Florence 1908, pp. 193-200; Pastor, XIV, 2, see index: L. Koch, Jesuiten-Lexikon, Paderborn 1934, coll. 314-15.
Guitton, Giorgio, and Ugo Viglino. “Lachelier, jules.” In Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. VII, coll. 787–788. Città del Vaticano: Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1951. https://azioneromana.com/article/lachelier-jules.
MLA
Guitton, Giorgio, and Ugo Viglino. “Lachelier, jules.” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. VII, Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1951, coll. 787–788. Azione Romana, https://azioneromana.com/article/lachelier-jules.
BibTeX
@incollection{ec7_lachelier_jules,
author = {Guitton, Giorgio and Viglino, Ugo},
title = {Lachelier, jules},
booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica},
volume = {VII},
pages = {787--788},
note = {Cited by column},
publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico},
address = {Città del Vaticano},
year = {1951},
url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/lachelier-jules}
}
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