Emile Boutroux Quotes
Emile Boutroux was a French philosopher whose work in the philosophy of science and religion shaped a generation of French and American thinkers, including his student Henri Bergson. His doctoral thesis, On the Contingency of the Laws of Nature, argued against the supposition of strict determinism in natural law and made room for genuine novelty and freedom in nature. The quotes below are attributed to Emile Boutroux, organized by topic.
Browse Emile Boutroux by topic
Emile Boutroux on Death
-
“The whole person of Ravaisson was the manifestation of one unique thing: his intimate union of thought and heart with spiritual and eternal realities. Deep down, he did not believe in death because he was convinced that what passes away has its being only in what remains. He saw things and people not only in their ideas, like Plato , but in their source, which is infinite love, superior to the Idea and unfailing. He not only professed his doctrine with conviction, but lived it. ( La filosofia di F. Ravaisson , p. 116)”
Wikiquote
Emile Boutroux on Freedom
-
Attributed to Emile Boutroux:
“Liberty is a real principle in nature.”
Emile Boutroux on God
-
Attributed to Emile Boutroux:
“Religion and science are not enemies; they have different domains.”
-
“Mysticism consists, according to a beautiful definition I find in Plotinus ], in seeing with closed eyes [...] in seeing with the eyes of the soul , while the eyes of the body are closed. The essential phenomenon of mysticism is what is called ecstasy , a state in which, with all communication with the external world interrupted, the soul has the sense of communicating with an internal object, which is the infinite being, God. ( La psicologia del misticismo , pp. 58-59)”
Wikiquote -
“Above all, [Félix Ravaisson] was a writer. He expressed himself in broad, flexible, simple and wise phrases, elegant and solid with an air of abandon, and the logical relationships between ideas and the aesthetic harmony that coordinates them and the creative action that brings forth the details, conditions and elements from the whole and from the beginning. His style is the very soul grasped in his inner life and in the secret movement through which it gives itself and spreads. ( La filosofia di F. Ravaisson , p. 116)”
Wikiquote -
“[...] the history of philosophy deals with the doctrines conceived by philosophers, not philosophy in general in its entirety, nor the psychological evolution of each thinker in particular; therefore, its essential task, to which all others are subordinate, consists in penetrating and understanding doctrines, explaining them as well as possible, as the author himself would do, and presenting them in accordance with the spirit and, to a certain extent, the style of their author. (Ch. I, pp. 7-8)”
Wikiquote
Emile Boutroux on Nature
-
Attributed to Emile Boutroux:
“Necessity in nature is not absolute; the laws of nature have a contingent character.”
-
Attributed to Emile Boutroux:
“Every level of nature has its own kind of law.”
Emile Boutroux on Politics
-
“Socrates' condemnation of ancient physics has its root cause in the ideas inherent in his own nation. Greece could not fully identify with the speculations on the principles of things to which the physiologists had gone. Without doubt, the power of reasoning, the ingenious subtlety, and the marvellous sense of harmony employed by these profound investigators were its heritage; but the immediate application of these spiritual qualities to material objects so foreign to man was contrary to the genius of an essentially political race, especially fond of fine words and fine deeds. (Ch. II, p. 22)”
Wikiquote
Emile Boutroux on Truth
-
Attributed to Emile Boutroux:
“The truth of life is something different from the truth of logic.”