Maine de Biran

François- Pierre- Gonthier Maine de Biran (* November 29, 1766 in Bergerac, France, † July 20 () 1824 in Paris? ), Usually under the name of Maine de Biran known, was a French philosopher.

Biography

Maine de Biran was born in Bergerac. He took the name Maine some time before 1787 by an estate name Le Maine near Mouleydier on the Dordogne on. After studying in Perigueux, he graduated with honors, he entered the bodyguard King Louis XVI. one from France, and was present at the events of October 1789 in Versailles. After the dissolution of the Royal Guard, he retired to his legacy Grateloup near Bergerac and remained so untouched by the turmoil of the French Revolution.

In this period there where he " per saltum of the frivolity of the philosophy " came to his own words was. He began with the psychology that became his purpose in life. After the reign of terror Maine de Biran also devoted himself to politics. Excluded on suspicion of loyalty to the King by the Council of Five Hundred, he took with his friend Joseph Lainé part in the Commission of 1813, which was opposed as the first directly against Emperor Napoleon. After the restoration of the monarchy, he was treasurer of the Chamber of Deputies. During the parliamentary recess in the fall he moved back in each case to study in his home. His exact date of death is uncertain.

Works

The Maine de Biran reputation as a philosopher has suffered from the fact that only some of its untypical writings, which were written in an obscure and difficult to read style, were published during his lifetime. These included the essay on the habit ( " Sur l' influence de l' habitude ", 1803), a critical review of the lectures of Pierre Laromiguière (1817 ), and the philosophical part of the article " Leibnitz " in the " Biographie universelle " ( 1819). A Treatise on the analysis of thought ( Sur la decomposition de la pensée ) was never printed. In 1834, these writings were published along with the essay " Nouvelles sur les rapports du physique Considérations et du moral de l' homme " by Victor Cousin, who in the edition of 1841 by three volumes under the title " oeuvre philosophiques de Maine de Biran " Advanced. Only in 1859 was carried out by Ernest Naville publication of the " oeuvre de Maine de Biran inedites " in three volumes ( with manuscripts that had been provided by Biran son available ) made ​​a comprehensive view of the philosophical development of Maine de Biran possible.

First, a sensualist, Étienne Bonnot de Condillac and as John Locke, next a intellectualist, he eventually became a mystic theosophist. The " Essai sur les Fondements de la psychologie " represents the second stage of his philosophical development, the fragments of the " Nouveaux Essais d' anthropologie " the third stage. Maine de Biran 's early essays in philosophy were written from the point of view of Locke and Condillac, but they already showed signs of his later interests. While he dealt with the formation of the habit he was forced to the conclusion that passive impressions can not provide a complete or adequate explanation. With Laromiguière it differs attention as an active effort, which plays no less important than the passive receptivity of the senses, and with Joseph Butler, he distinguishes passively formed habits of active habits. He concluded that the coined by Condillac notion of passive receptivity was a methodological error as the sole source of conscious experience - in short, that the mechanical way, consciousness must be regarded as the product of the influence of the outside world, was deceptive and misleading. Instead, he used the genetic method, which conscious human experience is seen as growing or developing the fundamental basis of the contact with the environment. The fundamental basis he found in the real consciousness, this self an active striving force, and the stages of its development, corresponding with what might be called the relative importance of external influences and the reflexive clarity of self-consciousness he identified as the Affective, a perceptual and the Reflexive. In this context, Biran looked at most of the unsolved problems that arise in the explanation of conscious experience, such as the method that will be recognized by the organisms, the method according to the organisms are distinguished from non - organic objects and the nature of such general ideas, according to which the relations between objects are perceived by us (cause, force, effect, etc.).

In the last stage of his philosophy Biran different animal existence from that of the people. In this case both the above three forms as well as animal and human existence were classified by the spiritual life here, where the man is associated with the higher consciousness, the divine scheme of things. This level remained unfinished. Overall, the work of Biran 's a remarkable example of deep metaphysical thinking, guided by the preference for psychological aspects of the experience dar.