Renouvier

1875 · 292171 — Paris France: Au Bureau de la Critique Philosophique 1875. Second edition. Paperback. Acceptable. RARE - for rebinding. Wraps as issued Title page pulling out first signature and front wrap loose. Rear wrap replaced. The text is evenly tanned and in good condition with some light foxing. Binding crease is splitting in one place. Early copy of Renouvier's Essays de Critique Generale Deuxieme Essai: "Traite de Psychologie Rationnelle d'apres Les Principes du Criticisme". Seconde Edition revised and expanded by Renouvier. 374 pages with contents and errata in rear. This is the third volume of the series beginning with "La Certitude" XVIII "De la Certitude des Sciences et leur Classification Rationnelle". Renouvier was the first French philosopher after Nicolas Malebranche to formulate a complete idealistic system and had a vast influence on the development of French thought. His system is based on Immanuel Kant's as his chosen term "néo-criticisme" indicates; but it is a transformation rather than a continuation of Kantianism. The insistence on the validity of personal experience leads Renouvier to a yet more important divergence from Kant in his treatment of volition. Liberty he says in a much wider sense than Kant is man's fundamental characteristic. Human freedom acts in the phenomenal not in an imaginary noumenal sphere. Belief is not merely intellectual but is determined by an act of will affirming what we hold to be morally good. Renouvier became an important influence upon the thought of American psychologist and philosopher William James. James wrote that "but for the decisive impression made on me in the 1870s by his masterly advocacy of pluralism I might never have got free from the monistic superstition under which I had grown up. Au Bureau de la Critique Philosophique paperback