Hippolyte Taine
Hippolyte Adolphe Taine (* April 21, 1828 in Vouziers, † March 5, 1893 in Paris) was a French philosopher, historian and critic. He taught at the École nationale supérieure des beaux -arts de Paris, the Saint-Cyr military school and at Oxford and was a member of the then most important scientific journals of France, the Revue des Deux Mondes and the Journal des Débats. He was a member of the Académie Française ( 1878).
Life
Taine came from a draper family from the Ardennes and was admitted for excellent academic performance in 1848 at the École Normale Supérieure, where he met Francisque Sarcey and Edmond About. His behavior - he was considered difficult - led to the failure of the targeted State Examination in Philosophy ( 1851). Despite a literary education, he took up the ideas of positivism. First, a teacher at the Collège de Nevers (1851-1852), then in Poitiers, he fell into disfavor and was transferred to Besançon (1852 ), while chosen by him in the field of psychology topics for doctoral dissertation were rejected, so he finally release from the school system and had returned to Paris. Now he has written numerous articles on philosophical, literary and historical topics for well-known scientific revues and 1857 permanent staff of the Revue des Deux Mondes.
In 1853, he finally received his doctorate with a Essai sur les fables de La Fontaine and the Latin text De personis platonicis. He traveled in the Pyrenees (1854 ), England ( inter alia 1858), Belgium, Germany and Italy, and devoted himself entirely to the study. In 1854 he published Voyage aux Pyrénées ( trip to the Pyrenees) and 1863 his Histoire de la littérature anglaise ( History of English Literature, in 5 volumes ), whose success has contributed to the setting at the École de Saint- Cyr (1863 ). From 1866 he taught art history at the École nationale supérieure des beaux -arts de Paris and 1871 in Oxford. The last years of his life Taine mostly in Menthon -Saint -Bernard, on Lake Annecy. He died in 1893 at the age of 64 years and was, according to his wish, a Protestant funeral.
The naturalists followed in their view, the theories Hippolyte Taine. He understood the people determined to be legitimate, as determined by heredity, environment and historical situation. In Germany it was Friedrich Nietzsche, who recognized the cultural and philosophical significance Taine first. Especially Taine's study of Napoleon I found in intellectual circles in Germany attention. Taine worked out that the predominantly by innate and acquired characteristics of the broad mass, uplifting man of action initiated historical processes or significantly influencing. Taine prime example of this philosophy of history thesis represents the work of Napoleon I, whose superior military and state political benefits meant the creation of modern Europe.