The History of Philosophy as a “Nomenclature of Systems”: Joseph-Marie Degérando

Abstract

AbstractIn the field of the historiography of philosophy, the French eighteenth century had closed emblematically with two works strongly influenced by revolutionary ferment – Naigeon’s Philosophie ancienne et moderne and Condorcet’s Esquisse (see Models, III, pp. 33–42 and 164–185). Just as emblematically, the nineteenth century opened during the transition from the Consulate to the Empire with Joseph-Marie Degérando’s vast historiographical work, which embodied the need for cultural reconciliation after the lacerating contrasts of the previous decade. This need manifested itself on several planes. On a theoretical plane, it translated into a revival of Condillac’s positions, which were modified, however, by the emphasis placed on “attention” understood as an act of the mind transforming sensation into perception (which results in a relationship of kinship-distance with the Idéologues and a proximity to the positions which were to be developed by spiritualists such as Laromiguière, Royer-Collard, and Maine de Biran). On a political and ethical plane, this corresponded to the need to recover the values of the Christian tradition and reconcile them with the post-revolutionary regimes. From the more specific point of view of the history of philosophy, Degérando finally represented the vigorous entry of Germany into the French tradition, giving rise to the re-establishment of the “general” history of philosophy on systematic bases and to the consequent fading of that histoire de l’esprit humain which had greatly characterized the age of the lumières. However, the intent to classify which inspired Degérando and which aimed at translating the history of philosophy into a strict “nomenclature of systems”, had its theoretical justification not so much in Kant’s critical philosophy (as was the case in Germany with Buhle and Tennemann) as in a “philosophy of experience” fuelled by the teachings of the Scottish school, which were relatively widespread in continental Europe.