Paul Alexandre René Janet (; 30 April 1823 – 4 October 1899) was a French

philosopher Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

and writer.

Biography

Born in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, he became professor of

moral philosophy Ethics is the philosophical study of moral phenomena. Also called moral philosophy, it investigates normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior is morally right. Its main branches include normative ethics, applied et ...

Bourges Bourges ( ; ; ''Borges'' in Berrichon) is a commune in central France on the river Yèvre (Cher), Yèvre. It is the capital of the Departments of France, department of Cher (department), Cher, and also was the capital city of the former provin ...

(1845–1848) and

Strasbourg Strasbourg ( , ; ; ) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est Regions of France, region of Geography of France, eastern France, in the historic region of Alsace. It is the prefecture of the Bas-Rhin Departmen ...

(1848–1857), and of logic at the ''lycée Louis-le-Grand'', Paris (1857–1864). In 1864 he was appointed to the chair of philosophy at the Sorbonne, and elected a member of the academy of moral and political sciences. He wrote widely on philosophy, politics and ethics, on idealistic lines: ''La Famille'', ''Histoire de la philosophie dans l'antiquité et dans le temps moderne'', ''Histoire de la science politique'', ''Philosophie de la Revolution Française'', etc. However, in the opinion of ''

Encyclopædia Britannica The is a general knowledge, general-knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It has been published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. since 1768, although the company has changed ownership seven times. The 2010 version of the 15th edition, ...

'' (11th edition, 1911), these writings are not characterised by much originality of thought. In philosophy he was a follower of Victor Cousin, and through him of

G. W. F. Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a 19th-century German idealism, German idealist. His influence extends across a wide range of topics from metaphysical issues in epistemology and ontology, to political phi ...

. His principal work, ''Théorie de la morale'', owes much to

Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant (born Emanuel Kant; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German Philosophy, philosopher and one of the central Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works ...

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English Natural history#Before 1900, naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all speci ...

was familiar with Janet's ideas, but thought that he had not well understood the theory of

natural selection Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the Heredity, heritable traits characteristic of a population over generation ...

, as he indicated in a letter of 1866 to

Alfred Russel Wallace Alfred Russel Wallace (8 January 1823 – 7 November 1913) was an English naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, biologist and illustrator. He independently conceived the theory of evolution through natural selection; his 1858 pap ...

As for M. Janet he is a metaphysician & such gentlemen are so acute that I think they often misunderstand common folk.

Works

*''The Materialism of the Present Day, a Critique of Dr. Büchner's System'', London: Williams and Norgate, 1865 (translated of the original French work into English by George Masson),

Notes

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Janet, Paul 1823 births 1899 deaths Academic staff of the University of Bourges Academic staff of the University of Strasbourg Academic staff of the University of Paris 19th-century French philosophers French essayists École Normale Supérieure alumni French male essayists Writers from Paris