François Bernier

François Bernier (* 1625 in Joue - Etiau, Anjou, † September 22, 1688 in Paris) was a French physician and philosopher.

Life

François Bernier lost his parents at an early stage and came into the care of his uncle. With fifteen he went to Paris to study at the College of Clermont. There he became friends with Claude -Emmanuel Lhuillier. This he learned Cyrano de Bergerac and Molière possibly know and belonged to a small group of people, which gave Pierre Gassendi lessons.

Later he joined Gassendi astronomy lectures at the Collège Royal in Paris in part, where he taught himself philosophy and had 1647 to 1650 the opportunity to travel to Germany, Poland and Italy.

When his teacher Gassendi was forced by a lung disease to give up his chair, accompanied him as secretary Bernier and nurses in the South of France near Toulon. During this time he made in 1652 at the University of Montpellier his degree as a doctor of medicine. In the years 1651-1654 he was also involved in a dispute with his teacher Jean -Baptiste Morin ( 1583-1656 ). It emerged the two writings Anatomia ridiculi muris ( 1651) and Favilla ridiculi muris (1653).

After the death of Gassendi traveled Bernier in 1656 in Palestine, Egypt, Arabia, and Ethiopia to Surat in India, where he arrived in 1658 and spent the next ten years of his life. He became a doctor of Muhammad Aurangzeb Alamgir, the Mughal emperor of India. After his final return to his 1670 trip report appeared under the title Histoire de la dernière révolution of the états du Grand Mogol.

1674 appeared the first part of his important work abrégé de la philosophie de Gassendi, in which he explains and defends the philosophy of his teacher.

In Paris, he was a welcome guest of the Literary Salons of Marguerite de la Sablière (1640-1693) and Ninon de Lenclos. In 1685 he visited Charles de Saint- Evremond ( 1614-1703 ) in London and Pierre Bayle, with whom he corresponded, in Rotterdam.

He suggested in an on April 12, 1684 -picked before the French Academy of Sciences and Bernier letter ascribed to divide the earth, not only in geographical regions, but also on the types or races of people that inhabit it. The letter was later published under the title Nouvelle division de la terre par les différentes espèces ou races qui l' hommes d' habitent ( German: A new classification of soil according to the different species or races of men who inhabit it ). In it, he probably first used the term " race" in the sense of a taxonomic classification of mankind ( as a synonym of " kind "). However, he turned against the practice of categorizing people according to skin color hasty, and estimated that the inhabitants of North Africa and the Middle East to India at the same "kind" or race like the Europeans.

Works

• Anatomia ridiculi muris, hoc est Dissertatiunculae JB Morini, astrological, adversus expositam a P. Gas Sendo Epicuri philosophiam. Paris 1651st
• Favilla muris, hoc est, dissertatinculae ridicule defensae a JB Morino, astrologo. Paris 1651st
• Histoire de la Revolution derniere des Etats du Grand Mogol. Paris from 1670 to 1671.
• Abrégé de la philosophie de Gassendi. From 1674 to 1684.
• Doutes à Mr Bernier sur quelques -uns of principaux Chapitres de son abrégé de la Philosophie de Gassendi. Paris 1682
• Éclaircissement sur ​​le livre de M. de la Ville ... In: Pierre Bayle: Recueil de quelques pièces curieuses concernant la philosophie de Monsieur Descartes. (Amsterdam 1684); excerpts translated in: Andreas Scheib ( ed.), This is my body. Philosophical texts for the Eucharist debate in the 17th century ( Darmstadt 2008)
• Nouvelle division de la terre par les différentes espèces ou races qui l' hommes d' habitent. In: Journal of Sçavans. Volume 6, 1684, pp. 133-140, online.
• Traité du Libre et du Volontaire. Amsterdam 1685.
• Extrait de diverses pièces pour envoyées étreines à Madame de la Sablière. Introduction à la lecture de Confucius. In: Journal of Sçavans, 1688, pp. 47-52
• Memoire sur le quiëtisme des Indes. In: Basnage de Beauval: Histoire des ouvrages of savans. September 1688, pp. 47-52.

Swell

• Dr. Hoefer (Editor): Nouvelle biographie générale: depuis les temps les plus jusqu'à nos jours reculés, avec les renseignements bibliographiques et l' indication des sources à consulter. Paris, Firmin Didot, 1852-1866, 46 volumes
• Herber Jaumann: Manual of the scholarly culture of the early modern period. Volume 1 Gruyter, 2004, ISBN 3-110-16069-2