Félix-Alexandre Le Dantec (16 January 1869 in
Plougastel-Daoulas – 6 June 1917 in
Paris) was a French biologist and
philosopher of science. He has been characterised as "fanatically Lamarckian, atheist, monist, materialist and determinist".
Biography
He obtained his Bachelor of Science degree at the
École Normale Supérieure in Paris, where he later worked as an associate-trainer in the laboratory of
Louis Pasteur
Louis Pasteur (, ; 27 December 1822 – 28 September 1895) was a French chemist and microbiologist renowned for his discoveries of the principles of vaccination, microbial fermentation and pasteurization, the latter of which was named afte ...
. He then became an assistant in the laboratory of
chemical physiology at the ''École pratique des Hautes études'' under the directorship of
Emile Duclaux. In 1889-90 he performed his military service in
French Indochina as a participant of the
Mission Pavie. Inspired by the work of
Elie Metchnikoff, he supported his doctorate in science with a study on
intracellular digestion
Every organism requires energy to be active.Anderson, O. Roger (1 January 1970). "Intracellular Digestion". ''The American Biology Teacher''. 32 (8): 461–467. doi:10.2307/4443206. However, to obtain energy from its outside environment, cells m ...
in
protozoa
Protozoa (singular: protozoan or protozoon; alternative plural: protozoans) are a group of single-celled eukaryotes, either free-living or parasitic, that feed on organic matter such as other microorganisms or organic tissues and debris. Histo ...
(1891). In 1891 he was sent by Pasteur to
Sao Paulo in order to conduct investigations of endemic
yellow fever.
[Repères chronologiques Service des Archives de l'Institut Pasteur]
Félix Le Dantec (1869-1917)
In 1893 he was appointed lecturer of
zoology at the
University of Lyon, where he continued studies of intracellular digestion. Later, he returned to Paris (1896), where he worked in the laboratory of
Alfred Giard at the
École Normale Superieure
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 ...
and taught classes in
embryology at the
Sorbonne. During this time period, he began publishing a series of works on the
philosophy of science. In 1900-01 he was stricken by
tuberculosis, forcing a lengthy stay at the
Hauteville sanatorium. Here he engaged in long discussions with a priest on the subjects of
religion and
atheism
Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no d ...
, publishing the book ''Le conflit'' (1901) as a result. In 1902, he returned to the Sorbonne, where from 1908, he taught classes in general biology.
[
The '' Lycée Félix Le Dantec'' in Lannion is named in his honor.
]
Evolution
Le Dantec was a supporter of Lamarckian evolution. His book ''Lamarckiens et Darwiniens'' was reviewed in the '' Nature'' journal as "a well-intended, but scarcely adequate, endeavour to reconcile the Darwinian with the Lamarckian conception of evolution." He rejected the ideas of August Weismann and proposed his own biochemical theory of heredity which allowed for the
inheritance of acquired characters.[Bowler, Peter J. (1983). ''The Eclipse of Darwinism: Anti-Darwinian Evolutionary Theories in the Decades Around 1900''. Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 113-114. ]
Scientism
Le Dantec was a positivist who found the approach of scientism
Scientism is the opinion that science and the scientific method are the best or only way to render truth about the world and reality.
While the term was defined originally to mean "methods and attitudes typical of or attributed to natural scientis ...
useful:
:"I believe in the future of Science: I believe that Science and Science alone will solve all the questions that make sense; I believe that it will penetrate to the mysteries of our emotional life and that it will even explain to me the origin and the structure of the hereditary anti-scientific mysticism that coexists with me in the most absolute scientism. But I am also convinced that men ask themselves many questions that mean nothing. Science will show the absurdity of these questions by not answering them, which will prove that they do not have an answer." (''Grande revue'', 1911)
Selected works
* ''Le déterminisme biologique et la personnalité conscience'', 1897 - Biological determinism and conscious personality.
* ''Evolution individuelle et hérédité'', 1898 - Individual evolution and heredity.
''Lamarckiens et Darwiniens''
1899 - Darwinism
Darwinism is a scientific theory, theory of Biology, biological evolution developed by the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and others, stating that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of smal ...
and Lamarckism.
*
Éléments de philosophie biologique
', 1907 Paris: Felix Alcan Elements of Biological Philosophy
* ''L'athéisme'', 1907 - Atheism.
* ''La crise du transformisme'', 1909 - The crisis of transformation.
* ''Le chaos et l'harmonie universelle'', 1911 - Chaos and universal harmony.
* ''Contre la Métaphysique. Questions de méthode.'', 1912
* ''La Science de la Vie'', 1912. The Science of Life.
* ''Le problème de la mort et la conscience universelle'', 1917 - The problem of death and universal consciousness.[
]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Le Dantec, Felix
1869 births
1917 deaths
19th-century French male writers
19th-century French philosophers
20th-century French philosophers
École Normale Supérieure alumni
French atheists
French biologists
French male non-fiction writers
French materialists
Lamarckism
People from Finistère
Philosophers of science
19th-century French military personnel
Scientists from Brittany