Elme Marie Caro (4 March 1826,
Poitiers
Poitiers (, , , ; Poitevin: ''Poetà e'') is a city on the River Clain in west-central France. It is a commune and the capital of the Vienne department and the historical centre of Poitou. In 2017 it had a population of 88,291. Its agglomerat ...
,
Vienne
Vienne (; Poitevin-Saintongeais: ''Viéne'') is a landlocked department in the French region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine. It takes its name from the river Vienne. It had a population of 438,435 in 2019.[Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...]
) was a French
philosopher
A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...
.
Life
His father, a professor of philosophy, gave him an education at the
Stanislas College and the
École Normale
École may refer to:
* an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée)
* École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France
* École, Savoi ...
, where he graduated in 1848. After being professor of philosophy at several provincial universities, he received the degree of doctor, and came to Paris in 1858 as master of conferences at the École Normale.
In 1861 he became inspector of the
Academy of Paris
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...
, in 1864 professor of philosophy to the Faculty of Letters, and in 1874 a member of the
Académie Française
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...
.
He married
Pauline Cassin, the author of ''Le Péché de Madeleine'' and other well-known novels.
In his philosophy, he was mainly concerned to defend
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
against modern
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 ...
. The philosophy of
Victor Cousin
Victor Cousin (; 28 November 179214 January 1867) was a French philosopher. He was the founder of "eclecticism", a briefly influential school of French philosophy that combined elements of German idealism and Scottish Common Sense Realism. As ...
influenced him strongly, but his strength lay in exposition and criticism rather than in original thought.
He wrote important contributions to ''La France'' and the ''
Revue des deux Mondes
The ''Revue des deux Mondes'' (, ''Review of the Two Worlds'') is a monthly French-language literary, cultural and current affairs magazine that has been published in Paris since 1829.
According to its website, "it is today the place for debates a ...
''.
Selected publications
*''Du mysticisme au XVIII
e siècle'' (1852–1854)
''Études morales sur le temps présent''(1855)
''L'Idée de Dieu''(1864)
''Le matérialisme et la science''(1867)
*''Jours d'épreuve'' (1872)
''Le Pessimisme au XIXe siècle''(1878)
''La Philosophie de Goethe''(2nd ed., 1880)
*''La fin du dix-huitième siècle'' (1881)
(1883)
''George Sand''(1887)
''Mélanges et portraits''(1888)
References
Sources
*
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Caro, Elme Marie
1826 births
1887 deaths
People from Poitiers
Members of the Académie Française
French philosophers
École Normale Supérieure alumni
Collège Stanislas de Paris alumni
French male non-fiction writers