Maurice Blondel’s “Action” Against the Totalitarians

MAURICE BLONDEL'S "ACTION" AGAINST THE TOTALITARIANS R. J AQUES THE great democracies are confronted today with the problem of action in a radically urgent setting; their very existence depends upon an estimate of the elan vital of the totalitarian ·powers. Nowhere is this clash of forces felt more intensely than in France where Action has come to have a glorious or a sinister meaning varying with the political party using the term. Even the Church is rent by the intensity of the political struggle: Catholics are members of the Action Fran,aise and support the Comte de Paris, or they declare their allegiance to Blum, Jouhaux, arid the Socialists. This rivalry is so strong that Catholic writers of the Left have been socially boycotted by church officials adhering to the Fascists. An outstanding Socialist writer in Fascist Provence must display consi derable courage. I n this contentious atmosphere a Catholic philosopher who attempts an analysis of action has noJack of opportunity for creating misunderstanding among (riends and foes alike. And such misunderstandings have pursued Mauri·ce Blondel, the philosopher of Aix-en-Provence, ever since his early a~tempts to present a thesis upon the subject of action. L'dc/ion, presented at the Sorbonne in 1893, was an unusual thesis whose ide. as have caused its author to be condemned at various times by rational idealists, Bergsonians and neO-Thom·jsts, and at the outset of his career prevented him from teaching in the national university system. Maurice Blonde! was born in 1861 at Dijon and attended the Lycee there. His teacher Alexis Bertrand aroused his interest in Maine de Biran, the well-known French psychologist of the early nineteenth century who has been called the French Fichte. More important for his later philosophical development were the influences of Leon Olle-Laprune and Emile Boutroux, who acted .s his mentors at the famous Ecole Normale, Paris, that curious semimonastic building in the rue d'Ulm where the Bower of young French students pursues studies for advanced university degrees. Through the influence of Raymond Poincare, Blonde! was enabled to overcome the hostility of the rationalists in the Sorbonne and was ap214 MAURICE BLONDEL'S "ACTION" AGAINST THE TOTALITARIANS R. J AQUES THE great democracies are confronted today with the problem of action in a radically urgent setting; their very existence depends upon an estimate of the elan vital of the totalitarian ·powers. Nowhere is this clash of forces felt more intensely than in France where Action has come to have a glorious or a sinister meaning varying with the political party using the term. Even the Church is rent by the intensity of the political struggle: Catholics are members of the Action Fran,aise and support the Comte de Paris, or they declare their allegiance to Blum, Jouhaux, arid the Socialists. This rivalry is so strong that Catholic writers of the Left have been socially boycotted by church officials adhering to the Fascists. An outstanding Socialist writer in Fascist Provence must display consi derable courage. I n this contentious atmosphere a Catholic philosopher who attempts an analysis of action has noJack of opportunity for creating misunderstanding among (riends and foes alike. And such misunderstandings have pursued Mauri·ce Blondel, the philosopher of Aix-en-Provence, ever since his early a~tempts to present a thesis upon the subject of action. L'dc/ion, presented at the Sorbonne in 1893, was an unusual thesis whose ide. as have caused its author to be condemned at various times by rational idealists, Bergsonians and neO-Thom·jsts, and at the outset of his career prevented him from teaching in the national university system. Maurice Blonde! was born in 1861 at Dijon and attended the Lycee there. His teacher Alexis Bertrand aroused his interest in Maine de Biran, the well-known French psychologist of the early nineteenth century who has been called the French Fichte. More important for his later philosophical development were the influences of Leon Olle-Laprune and Emile Boutroux, who acted .s his mentors at the famous Ecole Normale, Paris, that curious semimonastic building in the rue d'Ulm where the Bower of young French students pursues studies for advanced...