Emile Boutroux, French philosopher

Éteinne Émile Marie Boutroux (July 28, 1845 - November 22, 1921) was an eminent 19th century French philosopher of Science and Religion, and an historian of Philosophy. He was a firm opponent of materialism in science. He was a spiritual philosopher who defended the idea that religion and the science are compatible at a time when the power of science was rising inexorably. His work is overshadowed in English by that of the more celebrated Henri Bergson. He was elected membership of the Academy of Science in 1898 and in 1912 to the Académie française.

Life

Emile Boutroux was born at Montrouge, now in the Hauts-de-Seine département, near Paris. He attended the lycée Napoléon (now lycée Henri IV), and graduated in 1865 to the École Normale Supérieure. He then continued his education at Heidelberg University between 1869-1870 where he was taught by Hermann von Helmholtz and encountered German philosophy.

His first employment was the post of philosophy professor at the lycée in Caen. In 1874 he published his book on which he based his doctoral thesis. The Contingency of the laws of the nature was an analysis of the implications of Kantian philosophy for science.

Between 1874-1876 Boutroux taught at the Faculty of Letters at the University of Nancy and while there he fell in love with and married Aline Poincaré the sister of the scientist and mathematician Henri Poincaré. In 1880 his son, Pierre, was born. Pierre Boutroux was himself to become a distinguished mathematician and historian of science.

In 1888 Boutroux was made professor of history of modern philosophy at the Sorbonne in Paris.

He was elected a member of Academy of the Moral and Political Sciences in 1898 and in 1902 he became Director of the Thiers foundation, a residency for France's brightest students. He was elected to the Académie française in 1912.

Publications

Emile Boutroux' principal works are:

• The Contingency Of The Laws Of The Nature, (1874)
• Greece Defeated By The Stoics , (1875)
• Socrates, Founder Of Moral Science , (1883)
• The Idea Of Natural Law In Science And Philosophy , (1895)
• Moral Questions and Education , (1897)
• Easter, (1900)
• The Philosophy of Fichte , (1902)
• Psychology of Mysticism , (1902)
• Science And Religion In Contemporary Philosophy, (1908)

Quote

‘’Religion, is that faith and feelings demand their right besides the scientific view.’’

External links

• Chronology of Boutroux' life and longer Bibliography from the University of Nancy (http://www.univ-nancy2.fr/ACERHP/documents/BOUTROUX.html) , in French
• The Academie Francaise biography of Emile Boutroux (http://www.academie-francaise.fr/immortels/base/academiciens/fiche.asp?param=521) in French.