Jacques Bouveresse (; 20 August 1940 – 9 May 2021) was a French philosopher who wrote on subjects including

Ludwig Wittgenstein Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He is considere ...

Robert Musil Robert Musil (; 6 November 1880 – 15 April 1942) was an Austrian philosophical writer. His unfinished novel, ''The Man Without Qualities'' (german: link=no, Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften), is generally considered to be one of the most important ...

, Karl Kraus,

philosophy of science Philosophy of science is a branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. The central questions of this study concern what qualifies as science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the ultim ...

epistemology Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Episte ...

philosophy of mathematics The philosophy of mathematics is the branch of philosophy that studies the assumptions, foundations, and implications of mathematics. It aims to understand the nature and methods of mathematics, and find out the place of mathematics in people's ...

and

analytical philosophy Analytic philosophy is a branch and tradition of philosophy using analysis, popular in the Western world and particularly the Anglosphere, which began around the turn of the 20th century in the contemporary era in the United Kingdom, United Sta ...

. Bouveresse was called "an '' avis rara'' among the better known French philosophers in his championing of critical standards of thought." He was Professor Emeritus at the

Collège de France The Collège de France (), formerly known as the ''Collège Royal'' or as the ''Collège impérial'' founded in 1530 by François I, is a higher education and research establishment (''grand établissement'') in France. It is located in Paris ne ...

where until 2010 he held the chair of

philosophy of language In analytic philosophy, philosophy of language investigates the nature of language and the relations between language, language users, and the world. Investigations may include inquiry into the nature of meaning, intentionality, reference, ...

and epistemology. His disciple

Claudine Tiercelin Claudine Tiercelin is a French philosopher, working on metaphysics and philosophy of science. She is professor of philosophy at the Collège de France, after having been professor at the Paris 12 Val de Marne University. Biography Claudine Tierc ...

was appointed to a chair of metaphysics and philosophy of knowledge upon his retirement.

Education and career

Born on 20 August 1940 in Épenoy in the

Doubs Doubs (, ; ; frp, Dubs) is a department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in Eastern France. Named after the river Doubs, it had a population of 543,974 in 2019.Besançon Besançon (, , , ; archaic german: Bisanz; la, Vesontio) is the prefecture of the department of Doubs in the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté. The city is located in Eastern France, close to the Jura Mountains and the border with Switzerl ...

. He spent two years of preparation for the baccalauréat in philosophy and

scholastic theology Scholasticism was a medieval school of philosophy that employed a critical organic method of philosophical analysis predicated upon the Aristotelian 10 Categories. Christian scholasticism emerged within the monastic schools that translate ...

Faverney Faverney () is a commune in the Haute-Saône department in the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté in eastern France. See also *Communes of the Haute-Saône department The following is a list of the 539 communes in the French department of H ...

Haute-Saône Haute-Saône (; Arpitan: ''Hiôta-Sona''; English: Upper Saône) is a department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region of northeastern France. Named after the river Saône, it had a population of 235,313 in 2019.Lycée Lakanal Lycée Lakanal is a public secondary school in Sceaux, Hauts-de-Seine, France, in the Paris metropolitan area. It was named after Joseph Lakanal, a French politician, and an original member of the Institut de France. The school also offers a midd ...

in Sceaux, and in 1961 entered the

École Normale Supérieure 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 ...

in Paris. He presented his doctoral thesis in philosophy on

Wittgenstein Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrians, Austrian-British people, British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy o ...

, entitled "Le mythe de l'intériorité. Expérience, signification et langage privé chez Wittgenstein". Beginning with his earliest works, he consistently constructed his own philosophical and intellectual path, without following the normal routes and modes of academia. In 1976, Wittgenstein was practically unknown in France, as were Musil and the logic and analytical philosophy which Bouveresse had begun to study in the 1960s. These two last domains notably propelled him towards the lectures of

Jules Vuillemin Jules Vuillemin (; ; 15 February 1920 – 16 January 2001) was a French philosopher, Professor of Epistemology, Philosophy of Knowledge at the prestigious Collège de France, in Paris, from 1962 to 1990, succeeding Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Profe ...

and

Gilles Gaston Granger Gilles-Gaston Granger (; ; 28 January 1920 – 24 August 2016) was a French philosopher. Work His works discuss the philosophy of logic, mathematics, human and social sciences, Aristotle, Jean Cavaillès, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. He produced t ...

, who at the time were practically alone in occupying themselves with these problems, and with whom he maintained a lasting friendship. Academic career: * 1966–1969: Assistant to the Section de Philosophie of the

University of Paris , image_name = Coat of arms of the University of Paris.svg , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of Arms , latin_name = Universitas magistrorum et scholarium Parisiensis , motto = ''Hic et ubique terrarum'' (Latin) , mottoeng = Here and a ...

(teaching logic) * 1969–1971: Maître-Assistant to the UER de Philosophie of the Université Paris I * 1971–1975: Attached to the

CNRS The French National Centre for Scientific Research (french: link=no, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,637 ...

* 1975–1979: Maître de Conférences at the Université Paris I * 1979–1983: Professor at the

University of Geneva The University of Geneva (French: ''Université de Genève'') is a public research university located in Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded in 1559 by John Calvin as a theological seminary. It remained focused on theology until the 17th centu ...

* 1983–1995: Professor at the

* From 1995: Professor at the

in the chair of ''philosophie du langage et de la connaissance''.

Works

Bouveresse's philosophy is a continuation of the intellectual and philosophical tradition of central Europe (

Brentano Brentano is an Italian surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Antonie Brentano, philanthropist * August Brentano, bookseller * Bernard von Brentano, novelist * Christian Brentano, German writer * Clemens Brentano, poet and novelist, b ...

Boltzmann Ludwig Eduard Boltzmann (; 20 February 1844 – 5 September 1906) was an Austrian physicist and philosopher. His greatest achievements were the development of statistical mechanics, and the statistical explanation of the second law of thermodyn ...

Helmholtz Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz (31 August 1821 – 8 September 1894) was a German physicist and physician who made significant contributions in several scientific fields, particularly hydrodynamic stability. The Helmholtz Association, ...

Frege Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege (; ; 8 November 1848 – 26 July 1925) was a German philosopher, logician, and mathematician. He was a mathematics professor at the University of Jena, and is understood by many to be the father of analytic philo ...

, the

Vienna Circle The Vienna Circle (german: Wiener Kreis) of Logical Empiricism was a group of elite philosophers and scientists drawn from the natural and social sciences, logic and mathematics who met regularly from 1924 to 1936 at the University of Vienna, cha ...

Kurt Gödel Kurt Friedrich Gödel ( , ; April 28, 1906 – January 14, 1978) was a logician, mathematician, and philosopher. Considered along with Aristotle and Gottlob Frege to be one of the most significant logicians in history, Gödel had an imme ...

). His philosophical programme is in nearly all respects similar to the one conducted by many present day

Analytic philosophers Analytic philosophy is a branch and tradition of philosophy using analysis, popular in the Western world and particularly the Anglosphere, which began around the turn of the 20th century in the contemporary era in the United Kingdom, United Sta ...

The thought of Robert Musil

Jacques Bouveresse is interested in the thought of the early 20th-century Austrian novelist

(who wrote a thesis on philosophy), famous for his novel ''

The Man Without Qualities ''The Man Without Qualities'' (german: Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften; 1930–1943) is an unfinished modernist novel in three volumes and various drafts, by the Austrian writer Robert Musil. The novel is a "story of ideas", which takes place in th ...

'', as well as the aversion/fascination with which

Paul Valéry Ambroise Paul Toussaint Jules Valéry (; 30 October 1871 – 20 July 1945) was a French poet, essayist, and philosopher. In addition to his poetry and fiction (drama and dialogues), his interests included aphorisms on art, history, letters, mus ...

regarded philosophy.

Incompleteness and philosophy

Apart from his work on Ludwig Wittgenstein, Jacques Bouveresse is interested in the

incompleteness theorems Complete may refer to: Logic * Completeness (logic) * Completeness of a theory, the property of a theory that every formula in the theory's language or its negation is provable Mathematics * The completeness of the real numbers, which implies t ...

and their philosophical consequences. It is on this account that he has attacked, in a popular work ''Prodiges et vertiges de l'analogie'', the use made of these theorems by

Régis Debray Jules Régis Debray (; born 2 September 1940) is a French philosopher, journalist, former government official and academic. He is known for his theorization of mediology, a critical theory of the long-term transmission of cultural meaning in hum ...

. Bouveresse denounces the literary distortion of a scientific concept for the purpose of a thesis. This distortion, according to him, has no other purpose than to overwhelm a readership which lacks the training necessary to comprehend such complex theorems. Bouveresse's reproach to Debray is not that he uses a scientific concept for the purpose of an analogy, but that he uses such a difficult to understand theorem in the attempt to provide an absolute justification in the form of the classic sophism of the argument from authority. According to Bouveresse, the incompleteness of a

formal system A formal system is an abstract structure used for inferring theorems from axioms according to a set of rules. These rules, which are used for carrying out the inference of theorems from axioms, are the logical calculus of the formal system. A form ...

which applies to ''certain'' mathematical systems in no way implies the incompleteness of

sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of Empirical ...

, which is not a formal system.

Bibliography (in French)

(Unless stated otherwise, published by Éditions de Minuit) * 1969: ''La philosophie des sciences, du positivisme logique'' in Histoire de la philosophie, vol. 4. Ed.

François Châtelet François Châtelet (27 April 1925 – 26 December 1985) was a historian of philosophy, political philosophy and professor in the socratic tradition. He was the husband of philosopher Noëlle Châtelet, the sister of Lionel Jospin. Biog ...

* 1971: ''La parole malheureuse. De l'Alchimie linguistique à la grammaire philosophique'' * 1973: ''Wittgenstein : la rime et la raison, science, éthique et esthétique'' * 1976: ''Le mythe de l'intériorité. Expérience, signification et langage privé chez Wittgenstein'' * 1984: ''Le philosophe chez les autophages'' * 1984: ''Rationalité et cynisme'' * 1987: ''La force de la règle, Wittgenstein et l'invention de la nécessité'' * 1988: ''Le pays des possibles, Wittgenstein, les mathématiques et le monde réel'' * 1991: ''Philosophie, mythologie et pseudo-science, Wittgenstein lecteur de Freud'', Éditions de l'éclat * 1991: ''Herméneutique et linguistique'', suivi de ''Wittgenstein et la philosophie du langage'', Éditions de l'éclat * 1993: ''L'homme probable, Robert Musil, le hasard, la moyenne et l'escargot de l'Histoire'', Éditions de l'éclat * 1994: 'Wittgenstein', in Michel Meyer, ''La philosophie anglo-saxonne'', PUF * 1995: ', Éditions Jacqueline Chambon * 1996: ''La demande philosophique. Que veut la philosophie et que peut-on vouloir d'elle ?'', Éditions de l'Eclat * 1997: ''Dire et ne rien dire, l'illogisme, l'impossibilité et le non-sens'', Éditions Jacqueline Chambon * 1998: ''Le Philosophe et le réel.'' Entretiens avec Jean-Jacques Rosat, Hachette * 1999: ''Prodiges et vertiges de l'analogie. De l'abus des belles-lettres dans la pensée'', Éditions Liber-Raisons d'agir * 2000: ''Essais I - Wittgenstein, la modernité, le progrès et le déclin '', Agone * 2001: ''Essais II - L'Epoque, la mode, la morale, la satire'', Agone * 2001: ''Schmock ou le triomphe du journalisme, La grande bataille de Karl Kraus'', Seuil * 2003: ''Essais III : Wittgenstein ou les sortilèges du langage'', Agone * 2001: ''La voix de l'âme et les chemins de l'esprit '', Seuil, coll. Liber * 2004: ''Bourdieu savant & politique'', Agone * 2004: ''Langage, perception et réalité'', tome 2, ''Physique, phénoménologie et grammaire'', Ed. Jacqueline Chambon * 2004: ''Essais IV - Pourquoi pas des philosophes'', Agone * 2005: ''Robert Musil. L'homme probable, le hasard, la moyenne et l'escargot de l'histoire'', (new edition of 1993 above), Éditions de l'éclat * 2006: ''Essais V - Descartes, Leibniz, Kant'', Agone

References

External links

Qu'appellent-ils « penser »?
Bouveresse on the affaire Sokal and its consequences.
Entretien paru dans l'Humanité
(January 2004).
Interview about ''Que peut-on faire de la religion?''
(December 2012). {{DEFAULTSORT:Bouveresse, Jacques 1940 births 2021 deaths People from Doubs Lycée Lakanal alumni École Normale Supérieure alumni Academic staff of the Collège de France Academic staff of the University of Paris Academic staff of the University of Geneva Analytic philosophers Philosophers of language Epistemologists 20th-century French philosophers 21st-century French philosophers 21st-century French writers Légion d'honneur refusals Philosophers of science Philosophers of mathematics Philosophers of social science Critics of postmodernism French male writers