Abel Rey

Abel Rey (born December 29, 1873 in Chalon-sur-Saône , † January 13, 1940 in Paris ) was a French science historian and philosopher of science.

After attending school in Marseille and Paris, Rey attended the Lycée Louis-le-Grand and studied in Paris at the Sorbonne with Émile Boutroux , Victor Brochard , Émile Picard and Paul Tannery and also attended the lectures of Henri Poincaré and worked in the laboratory of Gabriel Lippmann and Edmond Bouty . He received his agrégation in philosophy and a licentiate in natural sciences and taught philosophy at the high schools in Bourg-en-Bresse and Beauvais . In 1907 he received his doctorate in Paris and in 1908 he was at the University (Faculté de Science) in Dijon , where he set up a modern laboratory for experimental psychology.

In 1919 he became professor for the history of science and the philosophy of science at the Sorbonne as the successor to Gaston Milhaud . In 1932 he became the first director of the newly founded Institut d'histoire des sciences et des techniques, which was in the Rue du Four in Paris. That was the first time that the history of science was established as a separate discipline at a French university and the institute was designed to be interdisciplinary. He edited the journal Thalès , which appeared irregularly from 1934 to 1968 and accompanied the work of the institute.

Associated with the institute was the project of the Encyclopédie Francaise by Lucien Febvre (a volume also dealt with mathematics, introduced by Jacques Hadamard ). He was also the editor of Actualités Scientifiques et Industrielles , the series Pour Servir a l'Histoire de la Pensée Moderne and Exposés d'Histoire et de Philosophie des Sciences .

His philosophy was positivistic ( Auguste Comte , Ernst Mach ), but devoid of dogmatism and fascinated by the sciences. Rey admired the severity of Immanuel Kant and was influenced by Gaston Milhaud, Léon Brunschvicg and Émile Meyerson . He also dealt extensively with psychology.

He was also associated with the Center International de Synthèse of Henri Berr and Aldo Mieli and from 1931 headed their Synthèse Générale section. In 1928 he was one of the founding members of the Académie internationale d'histoire des sciences and was one of the three vice-presidents from 1929 to 1931.

He wrote a five-volume work on the origin of science among the Greeks. He also criticized the concept of geometric algebra of the Greeks , which had been widespread since Paul Tannery (1939).

Fonts

Books:

• Leçons élémentaires de psychologie et de philosophie, 1903
• Éléments de philosophie scientifique et morale, 1903
• Leçons de morale fondées sur l'histoire des moeurs et des institutions 1905
• L'énergétique et le mécanisme au point de vue des conditions de la connaissance, Paris, F. Alcan, 1907 (part of the dissertation)
• La théorie de la physique chez les physiciens contemporains, 1907 (part of the dissertation), archive
• La philosophie moderne, éd. Flammarion, 1909
• Le retour éternel et la philosophie de la physique, Flammarion 1927
• Les mathématiques en Grèce, au milieu du Ve siècle, 1935
• La science dans l'antiquité, 5 volumes, in the series: L'évolution de l'humanité by Henri Berr:
  • La Science orientale avant les Grecs, 1930
  • La jeunesse de la science grecque, 1933
  • La maturité de la pensée scientifique en Grèce, 1939
  • L'apogée de la science technique grecque: les sciences de la nature et de l'homme; les mathématiques d'Hippocrate à Plato, 1946
  • L'apogée de la science technique grecque: l'essor des mathématiques, 1948

Essays:

• Sur le positivisme absolut, Revue philosophique, Volume 34, 1909, No. 68
• Vers le positivisme absolut, Revue philosophique, Volume 34, 1909, No. 67
• Pour le réalisme de la science et de la raison, Revue metaphysique et de morale, Volume 19, 1911, No. 4

literature

• Joseph W. Dauben , Christoph J. Scriba (eds.): Writing the history of mathematics , Birkhäuser 2002, p. 506
• Suzanne Delorme, Article Abel Rey in Dictionary of Scientific Biography
• Léon Brunschvicg: Abel Rey, in: Thalès, Volume 4 (for 1937–1939), 1940, pp. 7–8
• Pierre Ducassé: La vie et l'oeuvre d'Abel Rey (1873–1940), Annales de l'Université de Paris, Volume 15, No. 2, April – June 1940, pp. 157–164.

Individual evidence

1. ^ List of officiers ; Entry in the membership directory.