LAROMIGUIÈRE, PIERRE. - Philosopher, born at Livingac (Aveyron) on 3 Nov. 1756, died in Paris on 12 Aug. 1837. He was ordained priest in 1785, but celebrated Mass only once. He took the civil oath of the clergy in 1791 and laid aside his clerical habit in 1792. He was professor (1811-13) in the Faculty of Letters at Paris. His most important activity as a thinker lies between the Projet d'éléments de métaphysique (1794) and the Leçons de philosophie (1815-18).
He continued the sensism of Condillac, introducing however the concept of “attention” as generative of the spirit, and insisting on the idea of the soul as generative of attention itself. The soul, which for L. is active and immortal, produces the faculties of will, need, preference, and freedom. Despite his mediocre dialectic, L. (who remained, all things considered, a man of the eighteenth century) is a suggestive figure for the examination of the passage from Enlightenment sensism to Romantic spiritualism.