Background
Lachelier, Jules was born on May 7, 1832 in Fontainebleau, France. • 26 January 1918, Fontainbleau.
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Jules Lachelier
Edit ProfileParis IdealistTheory of knowledge and even tually taught there (1905-1907) He successfully submitted two theses for the doctorat d'état in ° ' 1 • epistemologyu ' L’École Normale Supérieure
Career
For most of his career he served as an official in public education, first as an inspector of Académie de Paris, and, front 1879-1900, as juspector General of Public Instruction. Taught at L Ecole Normale Supérieure, 1905-1907. After retirement, continued to serve as President of the jury or the Agrégation in Philosophy until 1911.
Ma'n publications:
(1933) Oeuvres de Jules Lachelier, Paris: F. Alcan.
(1933) Leures de Jules Lachelier, Paris: G. Girard.
990) Cours de logique 1866-1867, ed.
Jean-Louis Dumas, Paris: Éditions Universitaires.
Views
uchelier defined idealism as the doctrine that the '?0rld consists of representations. These he °aght of as psychological events which have a a^ic metaphysical status. Thus, as Edward *1Hard puts it, ‘The universe actually is a single 'story of thoughts and events continuously being tansformed’. In his Cours de logique Lachelier ers idealism as a response to scepticism. He Sa>s Malebranche is inconsistent because he g m‘ts the external world as an article of faith, in !,deal'sm must no( he given a subjective twist he manner of Berkeley or a sceptical twist in the ^anner of Hume. The difference seems to be ween representation, which is subjective, and ■ Presc"tability, which is not. Logic, especially the,®lc °( induction, is at the heart of Lachelier’s t, ’ 0s°phy. Indeed, the problem of induction— en in its widest sense as the problem that we can Induction for Lachelier is the passage from cls to laws. Roughly, his solution to the classical Dlem of induction is that every representation contains a principle through which it is intelligible. Induction is the finding of this principle. The ultimate principle is that ‘intelligence cannot exist except in a world of intelligible objects. We cannot believe in our own intelligence without believing in the intelligibility of things’. Lachelier thus seems involved in the dialectical opposite of Fouillées position. For Fouillée, ideas are particulars even in a context of activity. This context yields principles. For Lachelier, representations are seen as a manifestation of basic underlying principles. The influences of Kant and of some of Hegel’s work can be seen clearly, through Lachelier is deeply critical of both. One can see clearly his interaction with the thought of his contemporary Octave Hamelin, and the developing pattern in French thought of a kind of postKantian rationalism which, in its turn, becomes a defence of idealism. This line of thought was continued by Léon Brunschvicg and others. Joli vet (1953) has found parallels with Rosmini. Séailles (1920) has noticed that there is a problem of explaining continuity in a philosophy like that of Lachelier. A letter in Ballard’s collection of Lachelier’s writings calls attention to Lachelier's struggle to grasp the notion of freedom and his suggestion that although the real situation is very different from our idea of freedom. ‘God’, he says, ‘may be at the basis of our consciousness’—suggesting that we are more involved with the deity than we think.
