Jean-Marie Guyau (28 October 1854 – 31 March 1888) was a
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
philosopher and
poet
A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wr ...
.
Guyau was inspired by the philosophies of
Epicurus,
Epictetus,
Plato
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institutio ...
,
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and aes ...
,
Herbert Spencer, and
Alfred Fouillée, and the poetry and literature of
Pierre Corneille,
Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romantic writer and politician. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms. He is considered to be one of the great ...
, and
Alfred de Musset
Alfred Louis Charles de Musset-Pathay (; 11 December 1810 – 2 May 1857) was a French dramatist, poet, and novelist.His names are often reversed "Louis Charles Alfred de Musset": see "(Louis Charles) Alfred de Musset" (bio), Biography.com, 2007 ...
.
Life
Guyau was first exposed to
Plato
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institutio ...
and
Kant, as well as the
history of religions
The history of religion refers to the written record of human religious feelings, thoughts, and ideas. This period of religious history begins with the invention of writing about 5,200 years ago (3200 BC). The prehistory of religion involves ...
and
philosophy in his youth through his stepfather, the noted French philosopher
Alfred Fouillée. With this background, he was able to attain his Bachelor of Arts at only 17 years of age, and at this time, translated the ''
Handbook'' of
Epictetus. At 19, he published his 1300-page "Mémoire" that, a year later in 1874, won a prize from the
French Academy of Moral and Political Sciences and helped to earn him a philosophy lectureship at the
Lycée Condorcet. However, this was short-lived, as he soon began to suffer from
pulmonary disease. Following the first attacks of his disease, he went to southern France where he wrote philosophical works and poetry. He remained there until his early death at 33 years of age.
His mother,
Augustine Tuillerie (who married
Fouillée after Guyau's birth), published ''
Le Tour de France par deux enfants'' in 1877 under the pseudonym G. Bruno.
Guyau's wife published short novels for young people under the pseudonym of Pierre Ulric.
Philosophy
Guyau's works primarily analyze and respond to modern philosophy, especially
moral philosophy
Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns ...
. Largely seen as an
Epicurean
Epicureanism is a system of philosophy founded around 307 BC based upon the teachings of the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus. Epicureanism was originally a challenge to Platonism. Later its main opponent became Stoicism.
Few writings b ...
, he viewed English
utilitarianism as a modern version of Epicureanism. Although an enthusiastic admirer of the works of
Jeremy Bentham
Jeremy Bentham (; 15 February 1748 O.S. 4 February 1747">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New Style dates">O.S. 4 February 1747ref name="Johnson2012" /> – 6 June 1832) was an English philosopher, jurist, an ...
and
John Stuart Mill, he did not spare them a careful scrutiny of their approach to morality.
In his ''Esquisse d'une morale sans obligation ni sanction'', probably his most important work on moral theory, he begins from Fouillée, maintaining that utilitarian and
positivist schools, despite admitting the presence of an unknowable in moral theory, wrongly expel individual hypotheses directed towards this unknowable. He states that any valid theory of ethics must consider the moral sphere as consisting not merely of moral facts (the utilitarian approach) but also, and more importantly, of moral ideas. On the other hand, in contrast to Fouillée, he does not see this unknowable itself as able to contribute a "principle practically limiting and restricting conduct," i.e. of "mere justice" which, he states, comes too close to
Kantian notions of duty; for this, in turn, would bring us back to a theory of moral obligation, which, as the title suggests, he wishes to free moral theory from. Much of his treatise is dedicated to arguing what moral theory can be based upon that relieves moral theorists from relying on e.g. duty, sanctions, and obligations. For example,
The only admissible "equivalents" or "substitutes" of duty, to use the same language as the author of " La Liberté et le Déterminisme" appear to us to be:
#The consciousness of our inward and superior power, to which we see duty practically reduced.
#The influence exercised by ideas over actions.
#The increasing fusion of the sensibilities, and the increasingly social character of our pleasures and sorrows.
#The love of risk in action, of which we will show the importance hitherto ignored.
#The love of metaphysical hypothesis, which is a sort of risk of thought.
Guyau also took interest in aesthetic theory, particularly its role in society and social evolution. Primarily, Guyau's theories of
aesthetics
Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy
Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, Epistemology, knowledge, Ethics, values, Philosophy of ...
refute
Immanuel Kant's idea that aesthetic judgment is disinterested, and accordingly, partitioned off from the faculties of mind responsible for moral judgement. In ''Les Problèmes de l'esthétique contemporaine'', Guyau argues that beauty in fact activates all dimensions of the mind—the sensual, the intellectual, and the moral. Aesthetic sensations are fully integrated with life and morality. They are also the mark of man's self-actualization. Contrary to
Herbert Spencer's theory that the development of the arts is an indicator of the decline of society at large, Guyau maintains that as society continues to evolve, life will become increasingly aesthetic. In ''L'Art au point de vue sociologique'', Guyau argues the purpose of art is not to merely produce pleasure, but to create sympathy among members of a society. By extension, he contends that art has the power to reform societies as well as to form them anew.
Guyau authored ''La genèse de l’idée de temps'' (English translation ''The Origin of the Idea of Time''), a book on the
philosophy of time
Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. S ...
in 1890. Guyau argued that time itself does not exist in the universe but is produced by events that occur, thus time to Guyau was a mental construction from events that take place. He asserted that time is a product of human imagination, memory and will.
Influence
Although Guyau is now a relatively obscure philosopher, his approach to philosophy earned him much praise from those who knew of him and his philosophy. Because he rarely made his political ideology explicit, Guyau has been portrayed as a socialist, an anarchist, and as a libertarian liberal in the style of John Stuart Mill. However, Guyau clearly expressed republican sympathies in which he praised the
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are conside ...
, saluted the Third Republic's promotion of civic and moral education, described voting as a "duty," and cautiously argued that democracy offered propitious conditions for creative development.
He is the original source of the notion of
anomie
In sociology, anomie () is a social condition defined by an uprooting or breakdown of any moral values, standards or guidance for individuals to follow. Anomie is believed to possibly evolve from conflict of belief systems and causes breakdow ...
, which found much use in the philosophy of Guyau's contemporary
Émile Durkheim
David Émile Durkheim ( or ; 15 April 1858 – 15 November 1917) was a French sociologist. Durkheim formally established the academic discipline of sociology and is commonly cited as one of the principal architects of modern social science, al ...
, who stumbled upon it in a review of "Irréligion de l'avenir". He is admired and well-quoted by the anarchist
Peter Kropotkin
Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin (; russian: link=no, Пётр Алексе́евич Кропо́ткин ; 9 December 1842 – 8 February 1921) was a Russian anarchist, socialist, revolutionary, historian, scientist, philosopher, and activ ...
, in Kropotkin's works on ethics, where Guyau is described as an anarchist.
Peter Kropotkin
Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin (; russian: link=no, Пётр Алексе́евич Кропо́ткин ; 9 December 1842 – 8 February 1921) was a Russian anarchist, socialist, revolutionary, historian, scientist, philosopher, and activ ...
devotes an entire chapter to Guyau in his ''
Ethics: Origin and Development'', describing Guyau's moral teaching as "so carefully conceived, and expounded in so perfect a form, that it is a simple matter to convey its essence in a few words", while the American philosopher
Josiah Royce
Josiah Royce (; November 20, 1855 – September 14, 1916) was an American objective idealist philosopher and the founder of American idealism. His philosophical ideas included his version of personalism, defense of absolutism, idealism and his ...
considered him "one of the most prominent of recent French philosophical critics."
[Orru, p. 501]
Bibliography
* ''Essai sur la morale littéraire''. 1873.
* ''Mémoire sur la morale utilitaire depuis Epicure jusqu'à l'ecole anglaise''. 1873
* ''Première année de lecture courante''. 1875.
* ''Morale d'Epicure''. 1878.
* ''Morale anglaise contemporaine''. 1879.
* ''Vers d'un philosophe''.
* ''Problèmes de l'esthétique contemporaine''. 1884.
* ''Esquisse d'une morale sans obligation ni sanction''. 1884.
* ''Irréligion de l'avenir''. 1886, engl. ''The Non-religion of the future'', New York 1962
* ''La genèse de l’idée de temps'', 1890.
* ''L'Art au point de vue sociologique''. 1889.
* ''Education et Heredite. Etude sociologique.'' Paris 1902.
References
Further reading
*Ansell-Pearson, K. (2014). "Morality and the philosophy of life in Guyau and Bergson." Continental Philosophy Review 47(1): 59-85.*
*Michael C. Behrent, "Le débat Guyau-Durkheim sur la théorie sociologique de la religion," Archives de sciences sociales des religions 142 (avr.-juin 2008): 9-26.
*Hoeges, Dirk. ''Literatur und Evolution. Studien zur französischen Literaturkritik im 19. Jahrhundert. Taine – Brunetière – Hennequin – Guyau'', Carl Winter Universitätsverlag, Heidelberg 1980.
*Jordi Riba, La morale anomique de Jean-Marie Guyau, Paris
tc.: L'Harmattan, 1999
*Marco Orru, The Ethics of Anomie: Jean Marie Guyau and Emile Durkheim, British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 34, No. 4 (Dec., 1983), pp. 499–518
{{DEFAULTSORT:Guyau, Jean-Marie
1854 births
1888 deaths
19th-century French essayists
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