Alfred Victor Espinas (23 May 1844 – 24 February 1922) was a French thinker noted for having been an influence on

Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, Prose poetry, prose poet, cultural critic, Philology, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philo ...

. He was a

student A student is a person enrolled in a school or other educational institution. In the United Kingdom and most commonwealth countries, a "student" attends a secondary school or higher (e.g., college or university); those in primary or elementar ...

Comte ''Comte'' is the French, Catalan and Occitan form of the word 'count' (Latin: ''comes''); ''comté'' is the Gallo-Romance form of the word 'county' (Latin: ''comitatus''). Comte or Comté may refer to: * A count in French, from Latin ''comes'' * A ...

and Spencer. Although initially an adherent of

positivism Positivism is an empiricist philosophical theory that holds that all genuine knowledge is either true by definition or positive—meaning ''a posteriori'' facts derived by reason and logic from sensory experience.John J. Macionis, Linda M. G ...

, he later became a committed realist. He died in

Saint-Florentin, Yonne Saint-Florentin () is a commune in the Yonne department in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté in north-central France. It lies at the confluence of the rivers Armançon and Armance, and on the Canal de Bourgogne. Twin towns Saint-Florentin is twinned wi ...

Works

* ''Des sociétés animales'' (1877) * ''Les origines de la technologie'' (1897) * ''La philosophie sociale du XVIIIe siècle et la Révolution'' (1898) * ''Descartes et la morale: Études sur l'histoire de la philosophie de l'action'' (1925)

References

*Jean Ostrowski, ''Alfred Espinas, précurseur de la praxéologie: Ses antécédents et ses successeurs'', Librairie Générale de Droit et de Jurisprudence, Paris, 1973

External links

French philosophers French sociologists 1844 births 1922 deaths French male non-fiction writers Members of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques English–French translators École Normale Supérieure alumni People from Yonne {{France-sociologist-stub