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RENOUVIER, CHARLES BERNARD (1815-1903)

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Originally appearing in Volume V23, Page 102 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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RENOUVIER, See also:CHARLES See also:BERNARD (1815-1903) , See also:French philosopher, was See also:born at See also:Montpellier on the 1st of See also:January 1818, and educated in See also:Paris at the Ecole Polytechnique. In See also:early See also:life he took an See also:interest in politics, and the approval extended by Hippolyte See also:Carnot to his See also:Manuel republicain de l'homme et du citoyen (1848) was the occasion of that See also:minister's fall. He never held public employment, but spent his life See also:writing, retired from the See also:world. He died on the 1st of See also:September 1903. Renouvier was the first Frenchman after See also:Malebranche to formulate a See also:complete idealistic See also:system, and had a vast See also:influence on the development of French thought. His system is based on See also:Kant's, as his chosen See also:term " Neo-criticisme " indicates; but it is a trans-formation rather than a continuation of Kantianism. The two leading ideas are a dislike to the Unknowable in all its forms, and a reliance on the validity of our See also:personal experience. The former accounts for his See also:acceptance of Kant's phenomenalism, combined with rejection of the thing in itself. It accounts, too, for his polemic on the one See also:hand against a Substantial Soul, a Buddhistic See also:Absolute, an See also:Infinite Spiritual Substance; on the other hand against the no less mysterious material or dynamic substratum by which naturalistic See also:Monism explains the world. He holds that nothing exists except presentations, which are not merely sensational, and have an See also:objective aspect no less than a subjective. To explain the formal organization of our experience he adopts a modified version of the Kantian categories. The insistence on the validity of personal experience leads Renouvier to a yet more important divergence from Kant in his treatment of volition.

See also:

Liberty, he says, in a much wider sense than Kant, is See also:man's fundamental characteristic. Human freedom acts in the phenomenal, not in an imaginary noumenal See also:sphere. Belief is not intellectual merely, but is determined by an See also:act of will affirming what we hold to be morally See also:good. In his religious views Renouvier makes a considerable approximation to See also:Leibnitz. He holds that we are rationally justified in affirming human See also:immortality and the existence of a finite See also:God who is to be a constitutional ruler, but not a See also:despot, over the souls of men. He would, however, regard See also:atheism as preferable to a belief in an infinite Deity. His See also:chief See also:works are: Essais de critique generale (1854-64), See also:Science de la morale (1869), Uchronie (1876), Esquisse d'une See also:classification systematique See also:des doctrines philosophiques (1885-86), Philosophic analytique de l'histoire (1896-97), Histoire et See also:solution des problemes metaphysiques (19ot); See also:Victor See also:Hugo: Le Pate (1893), Le Philosophe (1900); See also:Les Dilemmes de la metaphysique pure (1901); Le Personnalisme (1903) ; Critique de la See also:doctrine de Kant (1906, published by L. Prat). See L. Prat, Les Derniers entretiens de Charles Renouvier (1904) M. Ascher, Renouvier and der franzosische Neu-Kriticismus (1900) ; E. See also:Janssens, Le Neocriticisme de C.

R. (19o4); A. Darlu, La Morale de Renouvier (19o4); G. Seailles, La Philosophie de C. R. (1905); A. See also:

Arnal, La Philosophic religieuse de C. R. (1907).

End of Article: RENOUVIER, CHARLES BERNARD (1815-1903)

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