VOLNEY, Constantin-François de Chassebœuf, Count of. - French philosopher, scholar, and politician, b. at Craon (Anjou) in 1757, d. at Paris in 1820.

Having come to Paris very young, he devoted himself to the study of law, medicine, and the classics, frequenting the cultural and philosophical currents of the Enlightenment circles, and giving himself over to intense political activity both under the revolutionary regime and with Napoleon, who sought in vain to have him as a supporter. Philosophical works: Ruines ou méditations sur les révolutions des empires (1791); De la loi naturelle (1793). His output in the field of historical and Oriental studies was more extensive.

V., a sensualist in philosophy, from the Parisian milieu but above all from personal meditation, enriched through the knowledge of different peoples, came to value in the human person self-love as the motive and end of individual and social actions: it is in this law of the preservation of one's own person and of the development of one's own faculties, the simple and fruitful principle, origin, center and measure of all ideas, of good and evil, vice and virtue, truth or error. A denier of every positive religion, he arrives, from the consideration of the universe, at conceiving a God as supreme agent, universal and identical mover, to whom belongs the sole worship of obedience to the laws of nature.

Bibliography4 works

BIBL.: ed., Oeuvres complètes, 8 vols., Paris 1820. Studies: A. Bossange, Notice sur la vie et les écrits de C.-F. V., ibid. 1899; C. Trivero, La dottrina della legge naturale in V., Turin 1903; D. Morhead, Les « Ruines » de V., in The Foreign Quart. Rev., 9 (1927), pp. 138-46; cf. also the introd. by Gaston-Martin to C. F. V., La loi naturelle, Paris 1934.

Alberto Monticone

@incollection{ec12_volney_constantin_francois_de, author = {Monticone, Alberto}, title = {Volney, constantin-françois de chasse-boeuf, conte di}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {XII}, pages = {1591--1592}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1954}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/volney-constantin-francois-de-chasse-boeuf-conte-di} }

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Volney, Constantin-François de Chassebœuf, Count of

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