Léger Marie Deschamps (10 January 1716 – 19 April 1774),

Benedictine The Benedictines, officially the Order of Saint Benedict (, abbreviated as O.S.B. or OSB), are a mainly contemplative monastic order of the Catholic Church for men and for women who follow the Rule of Saint Benedict. Initiated in 529, th ...

monk, known under his Benedictine name of Dom Deschamps, 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

utopian socialist Utopian socialism is the term often used to describe the first current of modern socialism and socialist thought as exemplified by the work of Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, Étienne Cabet, and Robert Owen. Utopian socialism is often ...

, who taught a form of modified

Spinozism Baruch (de) Spinoza (24 November 163221 February 1677), also known under his Latinized pen name Benedictus de Spinoza, was a philosopher of Portuguese-Jewish origin, who was born in the Dutch Republic. A forerunner of the Age of Enlightenmen ...

Metaphysics

During his lifetime he published very little, but corresponded with most of the leaders of the

French Enlightenment French may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France ** French people, a nation and ethnic group ** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices Arts and media * The French (band) ...

. Rediscovered in 1862, he was hailed as a precursor of

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

metaphysical Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the basic structure of reality. It is traditionally seen as the study of mind-independent features of the world, but some theorists view it as an inquiry into the conceptual framework of h ...

system anticipates

by asserting that truth includes contradictory elements, and he had much to say about how the concept Being collapses into that of Nothing.""Everything is nothing." "No doubt no one before me has ever written that everything and nothing are one and the same." For Deschamps, this principle is basic to his doctrine on existence: "What is the cause of existence? Answer: Its cause resides in the fact that nothing is something, in that it is existence, in that it is everything." Here he finds a place for God as well: "God is nothing, nonexistence itself."" (Shafarevich, p116) There was a further revival of interest in his work after 1974, and his collected works were finally published in 1993.

Major work

''Le Vrai Système ou le Mot de l'énigme métaphysique et morale'', facsimile published by the ''Société des textes français modernes'', by Jean Thomas and Franco Venturi, Paris, 1939

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Leger Marie Deschamps French Enlightenment 18th-century French philosophers French metaphysicians Utopian socialists French male non-fiction writers 18th-century French male writers