Étienne Vacherot

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Étienne Vacherot (born July 29, 1809 in Torcenay near Langres , Haute-Marne , † July 28, 1897 in Paris ) was a French philosopher .

Vacherot attended the École normal supérieure and then got a job as a philosophy teacher at various institutions. In 1837 he was promoted to director of studies and maître de conférences and as such took over the management of an École normal supérieure. Two years later he was appointed to succeed his teacher Victor Cousin as professor of philosophy at the Sorbonne .

During these years Vacherot began to publish his "Histoire critique de l'école d'Alexandrie". The Académie française considered this work to be so important that they awarded it a prize. This work was extremely controversial and when Abbé Gratry polemicized against Vacherot , this publication was apparently on the verge of being banned.

Because of his liberal attitude, he was suspended in 1849 at the instigation of the clericals and lost his position as school director. When the second empire was proclaimed in 1852 , Vacherot Napoléon III refused . the oath of allegiance and thereby also lost his job at the Sorbonne. In 1859 Vacherot published his "La démocratie" and was sentenced to three months imprisonment for this book.

In 1868 he was accepted as a member of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques . From 1870 he acted as mayor of the fifth arrondissement in Paris and rendered useful services during the siege and uprising of the commune . These were rewarded by sending Vacherot to the National Assembly on February 8, 1871 as a representative from Paris . There he joined the left, but fell away from the Republican Party in 1873 and supported the ministry Albert de Broglie and his ultramontane endeavors , even voting for the clerical education law. He was therefore not re-elected in 1876.

The brothers André and Marcel Vacherot , later French national champions in tennis, were his grandchildren.

Works (selection)

Books
  • Histoire critique de l´école d'Alexandrie . 1846–51 (3 vols.),
  • La métaphysique et la science . 2nd ed. 1863 (3 vol.)
  • La democratie . 2nd edition 1860,
  • Essais de philosophie critique . 1864,
  • La religion . 1868.
  • La science et la conscience . 1870.
  • La politique extérieure . 1881.
  • Le nouveau spiritualisme . 1884.
Essays
  • Dictionnaire des sciences philosophiques , Hachette, Paris 1875 ff. (6 vols.). Paris: Hachette, 1844ff. (6 volumes)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Family tree of Étienne Vacherot , Marcel is noted here as his grandson (André is missing), published on the Geneanet website.
personal data
SURNAME Vacherot, Etienne
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French scholar and philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH July 29, 1809
PLACE OF BIRTH Torcenay near Langres
DATE OF DEATH July 28, 1897
Place of death Paris