Background
Ruyer, Raymond was born in 1902 in Plaingaing, Vosges, France.
metaphysician Philosopher of science
Ruyer, Raymond was born in 1902 in Plaingaing, Vosges, France.
L’École Normale Supérieure, 1921 -24.
1945-1974, Professor of Philosophy, University of Nancy.
Ruyer’s philosophy, in some respects a revival of ideas expounded by Aristotle and Leibniz, uses the evidence provided by the sciences to construct a comprehensive conception of the universe or metaphysics. In his first book. Esquisse d’une philosophie de la structure (1930), Ruyer offered an original interpretation of mechanism as form or structure. But in La Conscience et le corps (1937), he abandoned mechanism and presented a fresh theory, according to which every being institutes actions, acts in view of some purpose of which it is conscious, even if in some very ill-defined sense. This seeking after fulfilment of a type, he holds, is characteristic of value-seeking activity; but it is only on the human level that there arises reflective awareness of the transcendent realm of values, with reference to which the phenomenal activity of every being must be understood. Ruyer has developed these themes in many subsequent writings, contending that in any account of value there are three aspects to be distinguished: the agent, the form and the ideal, where ‘form’ is understood as 'type actually realized’ and ‘ideal’ as ‘governing essence’. For instance, an artist, the agent, seeking an ideal of beauty, produces a particular form of picture. All three aspects, he maintains, are united in the idea of God, understood both as the ultimate source of all activity in the world and as the point of convergence of all values. Though he is little known to Anglo-Saxon philosophers; Ruyer has constructed one of the most important metaphysical systems produced in France this century.