PIERRE

See also:

• PIERRE LAROMIGUILRE (1756-1837)

LAROMIGUILRE (1756-1837)  , French philosopher, was born at Livignac on the 3rd of November 1756, and died on the 12th of August 1837 in Paris . As professor of philosophy at Toulouse he was unsuccessful and incurred the censure of the parliament by a thesis on the rights of property in connexion with taxation . Subsequently he came to Paris, where he was appointed professor of logic in the &cole Normale and lectured in the Prytanee . In 1799 he was made a member of the Tribunate, and in 1833 of the Academy of Moral and Political Science . In 1793 he published Projet d'elements de metaphysique, a work characterized by lucidity and excellence of style . He wrote also two Memoires, read before the Institute, Les Paradoxes de Condillac (18o5) and Legons de philosophie (1815-1818) . Laromiguiere's philosophy is interesting as a revolt against the extreme physiological psychology of the natural scientists, such as Cabanis . He distinguished between those psychological phenomena which can be traced directly to purely physical causes, and the actions of the soul which originate from within itself . Psychology was not for him a branch of physiology, nor on the other hand did he give to his theory an abstruse metaphysical basis . A pupil of Condillac and indebted for much of his ideology to Destutt de Tracy, he attached a fuller importance to Attention as a psychic faculty . Attention provides the facts, Comparison groups and combines them, while Reason systematizes and explains . The soul is active in its choice, i.e. is endowed with free-will, and is, therefore, immortal .

For natural science as a method of

discovery he had no respect . He held that its judgments are, at the best, statements of identity, and that its so-called discoveries are merely the reiteration, in a new form, of previous truisms . Laromiguiere was not the first to develop these views; he owed much to Condillac, Destutt de Tracy and Cabanis . But, owing to the accuracy of his language and the purity of his style, his works had great influence, especially over Armand Marrast, Cardaillac and Cousin . A lecture of his in the Ecole Normale impressed Cousin so strongly that he at once devoted himself to the study of philosophy . Jouffroy and Tafne agree in describing him as one of the great thinkers of the 19th century . See Damiron, Essai sur la philosophic en France au XIX' siecle; Biran, Examen des lecons de philosophie; Victor Cousin, De Methodo sivc de Analysi; Daunou, Notice sur Laromiguiere; H . Tafne, Les Philosophes classiques du XIX' siecle; Gatien Arnoult, Etude sur Laromiguiere; Compayre, Notice sur Laromiguiere; Ferraz, Spiritualisme et Libe'ralisme; F . Picavet, Les Ideologues .