Degrees

 2006    Master in Economics   University Panthéon-Sorbonne : Paris I

Fully financed by the Special Research Fund of the U.C.L., I have been achieving since the end of the year 2008 a research which intends to gather and articulate the various philosophical parts in and from Maurice Blondel's action theory. The exact title of my topic is: "Critical Methods and Humanism in Maurice Blondel's Philosophy of Action".

The major characteristics of Maurice Blondel's thought are as follows:

1) From the most ancient philosophy to the most contemporary one: Maurice Blondel is not only reader of Aristotle, of medieval (saints Augustine, Bernard of Clairvaux, Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scot) and early_modern philosophy (Descartes, Leibniz, Biran). He has influenced such essential philosophers of the XXth century (in a more or less admitted and assumed way) as Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Paul Ricoeur, Jean Ladrière, etc.

2) A French philosopher : Maurice Blondel joins expressly (while renewing it radically) the great lineage constituted by René Descartes and two other great French philosophers who succeeded him: Malebranche and Maine de Biran. Among other influences, we also find Blaise Pascal, Félix Ravaisson, Jules Lachelier, Emile Boutroux, Léon Ollé-Laprune and Victor Delbos. Moreover, Maurice Blondel, well-known by the philosophical community as a primordial thinker of his time, was one of those which were nicknamed the 3 "Bs" (Blondel-Bergson-Brunschvicg).

3) A totally transversal philosophy: like a Renaissance man, Maurice Blondel aspires to rethink the whole reality. He elaborates for that purpose a philosophy of science, of all sciences (physics, biology, sociology, etc., but especially psychology), whose epistemological considerations on mathematics are still current. It is by this way (very instructive to reconsider the way economics is considered and applied today) that I became interested in this author.

Maurice Blondel also had a considerable influence in the field of the social and political analysis at the beginning of the XXth century, by condemning very early the Action Française (an influential antidemocratic, nationalist and racist movement), Nazism, Stalinism,  Francoism, colonization, among others.

And Blondel's great insights on God, another of his main concerns, inspired a vast stream of philosophy of religion, which had a significant influence on the Vatican Council II. As he fought for an open society, he promoted an open faith.

Last but not least, Blondel is a great writer. The quite remarkable literary qualities of his L'Action of 1893 stem from frequent readings of the Bible , Pascal and Bossuet, but not only. Assiduous reader of novels, he shared his passion with his great friend, Henri Bremond, definitively one of the most eminent specialists of the French literary history.

Biography

Degrees

 2006    Master in Economics   University Panthéon-Sorbonne : Paris I

Research

Fully financed by the Special Research Fund of the U.C.L., I have been achieving since the end of the year 2008 a research which intends to gather and articulate the various philosophical parts in and from Maurice Blondel's action theory. The exact title of my topic is: "Critical Methods and Humanism in Maurice Blondel's Philosophy of Action".

The major characteristics of Maurice Blondel's thought are as follows:

1) From the most ancient philosophy to the most contemporary one: Maurice Blondel is not only reader of Aristotle, of medieval (saints Augustine, Bernard of Clairvaux, Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scot) and early_modern philosophy (Descartes, Leibniz, Biran). He has influenced such essential philosophers of the XXth century (in a more or less admitted and assumed way) as Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Paul Ricoeur, Jean Ladrière, etc.

2) A French philosopher : Maurice Blondel joins expressly (while renewing it radically) the great lineage constituted by René Descartes and two other great French philosophers who succeeded him: Malebranche and Maine de Biran. Among other influences, we also find Blaise Pascal, Félix Ravaisson, Jules Lachelier, Emile Boutroux, Léon Ollé-Laprune and Victor Delbos. Moreover, Maurice Blondel, well-known by the philosophical community as a primordial thinker of his time, was one of those which were nicknamed the 3 "Bs" (Blondel-Bergson-Brunschvicg).

3) A totally transversal philosophy: like a Renaissance man, Maurice Blondel aspires to rethink the whole reality. He elaborates for that purpose a philosophy of science, of all sciences (physics, biology, sociology, etc., but especially psychology), whose epistemological considerations on mathematics are still current. It is by this way (very instructive to reconsider the way economics is considered and applied today) that I became interested in this author.

Maurice Blondel also had a considerable influence in the field of the social and political analysis at the beginning of the XXth century, by condemning very early the Action Française (an influential antidemocratic, nationalist and racist movement), Nazism, Stalinism,  Francoism, colonization, among others.

And Blondel's great insights on God, another of his main concerns, inspired a vast stream of philosophy of religion, which had a significant influence on the Vatican Council II. As he fought for an open society, he promoted an open faith.

Last but not least, Blondel is a great writer. The quite remarkable literary qualities of his L'Action of 1893 stem from frequent readings of the Bible , Pascal and Bossuet, but not only. Assiduous reader of novels, he shared his passion with his great friend, Henri Bremond, definitively one of the most eminent specialists of the French literary history.