The Institutionalization of Philosophy: Victor Cousin and Hegel’s Legacy in France

Abstract

The article points out patterns in the institutionalization of philosophy during the first half of 19th century when French education was revamped by Victor Cousin and the school of eclecticism as part of the educational policy of the doctrinaire political faction. Cousin’s public statements and correspondence stating his views about how to properly conduct education in philosophy and what obligations that education had toward the political forces of the 1830s and 1840s are interpreted in the context of the structure of the French educational system, changes in the socio-political situation, the lingering influence of Jesuit colleges after they had been banned in the 18th century, the continuity of the administrative and personnel structure of secondary and higher schools, and the Napoleonic reforms. The main focus of the article is on how institutionalization influenced the spread of Hegelian studies and Hegelianism in France and on the inertia in the system that was introduced to maintain the canon of works and figures selected for France’s philosophers to study. The features of the French system of philosophical education that Cousin devised are analyzed, the role of the competitive agrégation in philosophy from the 19th to the 21st century is examined, and the advantages and problematic aspects of institutionalized philosophy are explained. The immediate conclusion reached is that Cousin’s educational policy had a direct and long-lasting impact on the development of Hegel studies and Hegelianism in France from the middle of the 19th century through the first third of the 20th century. That impact came in the form of a wide-ranging abandonment of translating, studying and teaching certain material, and the German idealist’s legacy was the most affected by it. The author also argues that this example reveals more than the role played by a person who pursued well-intentioned goals under particular circumstances with considerable success, although that success came at a cost for the study of the history of philosophy. The example illustrates how the outcome of philosophical studies depends on the institutional arrangement for training and selecting qualified consumers and producers of philosophical knowledge, and this brings up the question of the meta-position of philosophy.