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Refonder la philosophie en 1860: Ernest Renan critique de Vacherot
- Nineteenth-Century French Studies
- University of Nebraska Press
- Volume 38, Number 1 & 2, Fall-Winter 2009
- pp. 52-66
- 10.1353/ncf.0.0110
- Article
- Additional Information
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The publication in 1858 of Étienne Vacherot’s (1809–97) La Métaphysique et la science, ou principes de métaphysique positive was the occasion for Ernest Renan to take a stand on the question of philosophy. Whereas Vacherot, influenced by Hegel’s belief in the progress of knowledge, defines philosophy as a science which will be able in a near future to replace all other sciences, Renan insists on giving philosophy a more modest role. For Renan, philosophy, if it is to have a future, has to ground itself on the new sciences: history and philology. However, according to Renan, since philosophy is a set of fixed archetypes its role is not to progress to the point of replacing these sciences but to clarify and to give a general meaning to their discoveries. (mg ) (In French)