Jouffroy, Theodore Simon

Theodore Simon Jouffroy was born in 1796 in a village near Monte, he studied at colleges in Nozerua and Lons-le-Sollier. In 1811 he entered the Dijon Lyceum, where he took an external course of rhetoric. In 1813 he entered the Higher Pedagogical School, where he listened to lectures by Victor Cousin. In 1816 he defended two dissertations on philosophy on the themes “Sense of beauty and a sense of the sublime” and “On causality”. From 1814 he taught philosophy at the Higher Pedagogical School, then at the Sorbonne , and in 1833 - 1836 at the College de France . Since 1831 he was a member of the Chamber of Deputies, and since 1842 a member of the Council of Public Education. Collaborated in the magazines Globe, Courrier français and Encyclopédie moderne. Since 1833 a member of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences. He died in Paris on March 1, 1842 ^[4] .

In philosophy, Jouffroy was a follower of W. Cousin, one of the founders of French spiritualism; the teachings of I. Kant , Men de Biran and P. P. Royer-Collard also influenced the formation of his views. Following Laromigiere and Men de Birand, Jouffroy criticized the sensualistic ideas of Condillac and the French "ideologists." One of the sources of his teaching was also the Scottish philosophy of “common sense”, the works of the founders of which T. Reed and D. Stuart, he translated into French ^[4] .

Jouffroy understood philosophy as a science of man; he considered self-observation as the main method of philosophy, and attached psychology to key importance in it. The main question that occupied the philosopher was the question of the difference between soul and body and the difference in psychological and physiological point of view on a person ^[5] . According to Jouffroy, the existence of the soul is proved by the internal, and the existence of matter by the external experience. The world is a combination of two opposing and opposing principles. “Matter is disturbed in its inertness by the activity of force; force is constrained in its development by the inertness of matter ... The world is nothing but a struggle of these two principles ” ^[6] .

Unlike Men de Biran, Jouffroy saw the essence of the soul not in strong-willed , but in intellectual processes. Consciousness shows us the difference between soul and body, and in the soul itself - the difference between the higher, intellectual and moral, from the lower, physiological side. The classification of mental abilities developed by Jouffroy later became the basis for the teachings of French psychologists ^[4] .

The soul in its essence is a duration determined by natural inclinations, such as the desire for power, the desire for knowledge and sympathy for oneself. Faced with obstacles, aspirations force a person to enter the struggle, develop independence in him and form a personality . The ethos of Jouffroy is affected by Kant's strong influence. Reason shows a person that he cannot find complete satisfaction in selfishness and sensuality; this makes him conform to the aspirations of other beings, from which the consent and implementation of the world order arise. Respect for the world order is the only basis of morality; faith in immortality arises from the incompleteness of the implementation of the moral law in earthly life ^[5] .

• The Philosophical Blend (Mélanges philosophiques, 1833)
• Natural Law Course (Cours de droit naturel, 1834)
• The New Philosophical Blend (Nouveaux mélanges philosophiques, 1842)
• The Course of Aesthetics (Cours d'esthétique, 1843)

• I. Blauberg. Theodore Simon Jouffroy. - Encyclopedia Krugosvet.
• Radlov E.L. Zhuffrois, Theodore Simon // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron : 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.