LAROMIGUIÈRE, PIERRE. - Philosopher, b. at Livignac (Aveyron) on 3 Nov. 1756, d. at Paris on 12 Aug. 1837. He was ordained a priest in 1785, but celebrated Mass only once. He took the civil oath of the clergy in 1791, and laid aside the cassock in 1792. He was professor (1811–13) in the Faculty of Letters at Paris. His most important activity as a thinker falls between the Projet d'éléments de métaphysique (1794) and the Leçons de philosophie (1815–18).
He continued the sensationalism of Condillac, while introducing the concept of “attention” as generative of the mind, and insisting on the idea of the soul as generating 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 an evocative figure for the study of the transition from Enlightenment sensationalism to Romantic spiritualism.