Jules Vuillemin (; ; 15 February 1920 – 16 January 2001) was a French philosopher, Professor of

Philosophy of Knowledge Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that examines the nature, origin, and limits of knowledge. Also called "the theory of knowledge", it explores different types of knowledge, such as propositional knowledge about facts, practical knowledg ...

at the prestigious

Collège de France The (), formerly known as the or as the ''Collège impérial'' founded in 1530 by François I, is a higher education and research establishment () in France. It is located in Paris near La Sorbonne. The has been considered to be France's most ...

, 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 ...

, from 1962 to 1990, succeeding

Maurice Merleau-Ponty Maurice Jean Jacques Merleau-Ponty. ( ; ; 14 March 1908 – 3 May 1961) was a French phenomenological philosopher, strongly influenced by Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. The constitution of meaning in human experience was his main interes ...

, and

Professor emeritus ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retirement, retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". ...

from 1991 to 2001. He was an Invited Professor at the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry located in Princeton, New Jersey. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholars, including Albert Ein ...

, in

Princeton, New Jersey The Municipality of Princeton is a Borough (New Jersey), borough in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton, New Jersey, Borough of Princeton and Pri ...

(1968).

At the Collège de France, Vuillemin introduced

analytical philosophy Analytic philosophy is a broad movement within Western philosophy, especially English-speaking world, anglophone philosophy, focused on analysis as a philosophical method; clarity of prose; rigor in arguments; and making use of formal logic, mat ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

. Vuillemin’s thought had a major influence on Jacques Bouveresse's works. Vuillemin himself vindicated the legacy of Martial Gueroult. A friend of

Michel Foucault Paul-Michel Foucault ( , ; ; 15 October 192625 June 1984) was a French History of ideas, historian of ideas and Philosophy, philosopher who was also an author, Literary criticism, literary critic, Activism, political activist, and teacher. Fo ...

, he supported his election at the Collège de France, and was also close to Michel Serres.

Biography

After studying at the

École Normale Supérieure École or Ecole may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by Secondary education in France, secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing i ...

, he completed his

agrégation In France, the () is the most competitive and prestigious examination for civil service in the French public education A state school, public school, or government school is a primary school, primary or secondary school that educates all stu ...

in 1943, being received '' premier ex aequo'' alongside Tran Duc Thao. A student of French historical epistemologists

Gaston Bachelard Gaston Bachelard (; ; 27 June 1884 – 16 October 1962) was a French philosopher. He made contributions in the fields of poetics and the philosophy of science. To the latter, he introduced the concepts of ''epistemological obstacle'' and ''Epist ...

and Jean Cavaillès, he was however at first influenced by

phenomenology Phenomenology may refer to: Art * Phenomenology (architecture), based on the experience of building materials and their sensory properties Philosophy * Phenomenology (Peirce), a branch of philosophy according to Charles Sanders Peirce (1839� ...

and

existentialism Existentialism is a family of philosophical views and inquiry that explore the human individual's struggle to lead an authentic life despite the apparent absurdity or incomprehensibility of existence. In examining meaning, purpose, and valu ...

, before shifting towards study of

logics Logic is the study of correct Logical reasoning, reasoning. It includes both Logic#Formal logic, formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the study of Validity (logic), deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It examines how conclu ...

and

science Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...

. In 1962, he published a book titled ''The Philosophy of Algebra'', dedicated to mathematician Pierre Samuel (a member of the

Bourbaki group Bourbaki(s) may refer to : Persons and science * Charles-Denis Bourbaki (1816–1897), French general, son of Constantin Denis Bourbaki * Colonel Constantin Denis Bourbaki (1787–1827), officer in the Greek War of Independence and serving in t ...

René Thom René Frédéric Thom (; 2 September 1923 – 25 October 2002) was a French mathematician, who received the Fields Medal in 1958. He made his reputation as a topologist, moving on to aspects of what would be called singularity theory; he became ...

, physicist Raymond Siestrunck, and linguist Georges Vallet. Vuillemin thought that renewals of methods in mathematics have influenced philosophy, thus relating the discovery of

irrational numbers In mathematics, the irrational numbers are all the real numbers that are not rational numbers. That is, irrational numbers cannot be expressed as the ratio of two integers. When the ratio of lengths of two line segments is an irrational number, ...

Platonism Platonism is the philosophy of Plato and philosophical systems closely derived from it, though contemporary Platonists do not necessarily accept all doctrines of Plato. Platonism has had a profound effect on Western thought. At the most fundam ...

algebraic geometry Algebraic geometry is a branch of mathematics which uses abstract algebraic techniques, mainly from commutative algebra, to solve geometry, geometrical problems. Classically, it studies zero of a function, zeros of multivariate polynomials; th ...

Cartesianism Cartesianism is the philosophical and scientific system of René Descartes and its subsequent development by other seventeenth century thinkers, most notably François Poullain de la Barre, Nicolas Malebranche and Baruch Spinoza. Descartes i ...

, infinitesimal

calculus Calculus is the mathematics, mathematical study of continuous change, in the same way that geometry is the study of shape, and algebra is the study of generalizations of arithmetic operations. Originally called infinitesimal calculus or "the ...

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (or Leibnitz; – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat who is credited, alongside Sir Isaac Newton, with the creation of calculus in addition to ...

. Furthermore, he observed that philosophy had not yet taken into account the changes brought to mathematics by

Joseph Louis Lagrange Joseph-Louis Lagrange (born Giuseppe Luigi LagrangiaÉvariste Galois Évariste Galois (; ; 25 October 1811 – 31 May 1832) was a French mathematician and political activist. While still in his teens, he was able to determine a necessary and sufficient condition for a polynomial to be solvable by Nth root, ...

. In 1968, he co-founded with Gilles-Gaston Granger the journal ''L’Âge de la Science''. He was one of the main French commentators on the philosophy and works of

Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, and public intellectual. He had influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, and various areas of analytic ...

Ludwig Wittgenstein Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. From 1929 to 1947, Witt ...

Rudolf Carnap Rudolf Carnap (; ; 18 May 1891 – 14 September 1970) was a German-language philosopher who was active in Europe before 1935 and in the United States thereafter. He was a major member of the Vienna Circle and an advocate of logical positivism. ...

and

Willard Van Orman Quine Willard Van Orman Quine ( ; known to his friends as "Van"; June 25, 1908 – December 25, 2000) was an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition, recognized as "one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century" ...

. Vuillemin also took an interest in

aesthetics Aesthetics (also spelled esthetics) is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of beauty and taste (sociology), taste, which in a broad sense incorporates the philosophy of art.Slater, B. H.Aesthetics ''Internet Encyclopedia of Ph ...

, beside writing several books on

Kant Immanuel Kant (born Emanuel 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, et ...

, Anselm and on Diodorus's master argument (see

problem of future contingents Future contingent propositions (or simply, future contingents) are statements about states of affairs in the future that are '' contingent:'' neither necessarily true nor necessarily false. The problem of future contingents seems to have been fi ...

Jules Vuillemin’s Archives

Th
Jules Vuillemin's Archives
are located in France at the Laboratoire d'Histoire des Sciences et de Philosophie - Archives

Henri Poincaré Jules Henri Poincaré (, ; ; 29 April 185417 July 1912) was a French mathematician, Theoretical physics, theoretical physicist, engineer, and philosophy of science, philosopher of science. He is often described as a polymath, and in mathemati ...

. Gilles-Gaston Granger was, until his death in 2016, the president of the scientific committee of Jules Vuillemin's Archives.

Bibliography

* ''Le Sens du destin'', en collaboration avec Louis Guillermit, Neuchâtel, Éditions de La Baconnière, 1948. * ''Essai sur la signification de la mort'', Paris, PUF, 1948. * ''L'Être et le travail. Les conditions dialectiques de la psychologie et de la sociologie'', Paris, PUF, 1949. * ''L'héritage kantien et la révolution copernicienne. Fichte — Cohen — Heidegger'', Paris, PUF, 1954. * ''Physique et métaphysique kantiennes'', Paris, PUF, 1955, rééd. PUF, coll. Dito, 1987. * ''Mathématiques et métaphysique chez Descartes'', Paris, PUF, 1960, rééd. PUF, 1987. * ''La Philosophie de l'algèbre'', Vol. I : ''Recherches sur quelques concepts et méthodes de l'Algèbre Moderne''. Paris, PUF, 1962, rééd. 1993. * ''De la Logique à la théologie. Cinq études sur Aristote'', Paris, Flammarion, 1967, nouvelle version remaniée et augmentée par l'auteur / editée et prefacée par T. Benatouil. - Louvain-La-Neuve, Peeters, 2008. * ''Leçons sur la première philosophie de Russell'', Paris, Armand Colin, 1968, in reference to

The Principles of Mathematics ''The Principles of Mathematics'' (''PoM'') is a 1903 book by Bertrand Russell, in which the author presented Russell's paradox, his famous paradox and argued his thesis that mathematics and logic are identical. The book presents a view of ...

. * ''Rebâtir l'Université'', Paris, Fayard, 1968. * ''La logique et le monde sensible. Étude sur les théories contemporaines de l'abstraction'', Paris, Flammarion, 1971. * ''Le Dieu d'Anselme et les apparences de la raison'', Paris, Aubier, 1971. * ''Nécessité ou contingence. L'aporie de Diodore et les systèmes philosophiques'', Paris, Minuit, 1984, réed. 1997. * ''Éléments de poétique'', Paris, Vrin, 1991. * ''Trois Histoires de guerre'', Besançon, Cêtre, 1992. * ''Dettes'', Besançon, Cêtre, 1992. * ''L'intuitionnisme kantien'', Paris, Vrin, 1994. * ''Le Miroir de Venise'', Paris, Julliard, 1995. * « Nouvelles réflexions sur l'argument dominateur : une double référence au temps dans la seconde prémisse ». In : ''Philosophie'' 55 (1997), p. 14–30. * ''Mathématiques pythagoriciennes et platoniciennes. Recueil d'études'', Paris, Albert Blanchard, coll. Sciences dans l'histoire, 2001. ;English translations *
Necessity or Contingency. The Master Argument
', Stanford, CSLI Publications, 1996 * ''What are Philosophical Systems?'' Cambridge University Press, 1986

References

External links

*
Jules Vuillemin's Lectures
*
Jules Vuillemin’s Archives
*

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vuillemin, Jules 1920 births 2001 deaths People from Doubs École Normale Supérieure alumni Academic staff of the Collège de France 20th-century French philosophers French philosophers of science Analytic philosophers French male non-fiction writers 20th-century French male writers

Biography

Jules Vuillemin’s Archives

Bibliography

References

Further reading

External links