BLONDEL - L’action, essai d’une critique de la... Lot n° 1014

L’action - Essai d’une critique de la vie et d’une science de la pratique Notre ouvrage est la thèse de Doctorat de Médecine de Maurice BLONDEL. Maurice Blondel (1861-1949) is above all a philosopher. He developed a philosophy of action integrating elements of modern pragmatism in the context of Christian philosophy. Our book is the original edition of his doctoral thesis. The academic world of the time did not welcome this thesis and Maurice Blondel was refused the professorship he was applying for. The following year, thanks to the efforts of Emile Boutroux, Raymond Poincaré, then Minister of Education, lifted the veto and Blondel was appointed Senior Lecturer at the University of Lille and, the following year, in Aix-en-Provence. Among his works, we can quote : L'Illusion réaliste (1898), Le problème de la philosophie catholique (1932) and L'Etre et les êtres (1935). In 1945, he received the encouragement of Pope Pius XII for his positive influence on Catholic thought and action. Blondel endeavored to establish how, above knowledge of facts, a kind of faith derived from action is placed: "By his voluntary action, man surpasses phenomena; he cannot equal his own demands; he has in himself more than he can use alone. "But how to make a science of what is thus singular and indeterminable, of what escapes all measure and all representation, of what is in the process of becoming? how to determine what has neither quantity nor quality, since one cannot analyze its elements nor even consider its complex ensemble as a defined unit, since the character of each one is made and modified with each successive state? Perhaps this embarrassment arises from confusion and an abuse of analogy. Prevented and penetrated by the idea that the methods of positive science are usually thought of as the only type of truly scientific method, the psychologist is eager to apply their procedures to subjective science, without noticing that it is a d