Louis Rougier facts for kids

Louis Auguste Paul Rougier (born Paul Auguste Louis Rougier) was a French thinker born on April 10, 1889. He passed away on October 14, 1982. Rougier made many important contributions to understanding how we gain knowledge, the philosophy of science, ideas about government, and the history of Christianity.

Early Life and Education

Rougier was born in Lyon, France. When he was young, he became ill with pleurisy, a lung condition. Because of this, he was not able to serve in World War I. Instead, he spent his teenage years studying and learning. He studied philosophy with a teacher named Edmond Goblot.

After finishing his studies at the University of Lyon, he became a philosophy teacher in 1914. He taught at several high schools. Later, he taught at schools in Rome, Besançon, Cairo, and Geneva. He also taught at the Édouard-Herriot Foundation in Lyon.

In 1920, Rougier earned his highest degree (a doctorate) from the Sorbonne. He published his main research papers as books. One was called La philosophie géometrique de Poincaré. The other was Les paralogismes du rationalisme. He had already published other works, including a paper in 1914. This paper was about how non-Euclidean geometry was used in relativity theory.

Teaching Career

Rougier taught in Algiers from 1917 to 1920. Then he taught in Rome from 1920 to 1924. His first university job in France was at the University of Besançon in 1925. He worked there until 1948. He was dismissed from this job for political reasons.

He also taught in Cairo from 1931 to 1936. During World War II, he taught at the New School for Social Research in the United States from 1941 to 1943. In 1945, he taught at the Université de Montréal in Canada. Rougier's last teaching job was at the Université de Caen in 1954. He retired after only one year, at the age of 66.

Rougier's Philosophy

Rougier's ideas were shaped by thinkers like Henri Poincaré and Ludwig Wittgenstein. He believed that systems of logic are not always "necessarily true" or "proven by facts." Instead, Rougier thought that different logic systems are like tools. We choose them based on what works best for a certain situation. They are not fixed, universal truths.

This idea meant that there are no "objective" truths that exist outside the human mind. This view was similar to logical positivism. This was a way of thinking popular with a group called the Vienna Circle. Many members of this group admired Rougier's 1920 book, Les paralogismes du rationalisme. Rougier became the only French person linked to the Vienna Circle. He became good friends with some of its main members. These included Moritz Schlick, to whom Rougier dedicated his 1955 book. Rougier also helped organize and contribute to many Vienna Circle activities.

Views on Religion

Rougier's ideas about logic led him to disagree with Neo-Thomism. This was the official philosophy of the Roman Catholic Church at the time. It was becoming very popular in the 1920s and 1930s. Rougier wrote several books during this time that criticized the return of scholasticism, an older way of thinking. This made him an enemy of important Thomist thinkers.

Rougier's dislike of Neo-Thomism was not just about philosophy. It was part of his general opposition to Christianity. He had started to develop these ideas when he was a teenager. This was influenced by the writer Ernest Renan. His early views continued to shape his work as an adult. In 1926, he published a translation of a work by Celsus, an ancient critic of Christianity. This translation is still used today.

Political Ideas

Rougier was also a political thinker. He followed the liberal tradition of thinkers like Montesquieu and Tocqueville. Rougier believed that political power does not come from eternal truths. Instead, it comes from ideas or beliefs that he called mystiques. He thought that the only reason to prefer one political system over another was how well it worked. In other words, political systems should be chosen based on how practical and effective they are.

In 1932, Rougier visited the Soviet Union. This trip was sponsored by the French Ministry of Education. After his visit, he became convinced that a planned economy (where the government controls everything) did not work as well as a market economy (where businesses and people make choices). This belief led him to help start the first neoliberal group in the 20th century. This was the Colloque Walter Lippmann in 1938. That year, Rougier also helped create the Centre international d'études pour la rénovation du libéralisme. These groups eventually led to the creation of the famous Mont Pelerin Society in 1947. Rougier was elected to this society in the 1960s, with support from Friedrich Hayek.

Rougier was one of the people who helped start neoliberalism. However, he was not at the first meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society. This was because of another political activity that caused problems for his career. This was his involvement with the Vichy government in France during World War II. In October 1940, the French leader Philippe Pétain sent Rougier on a secret trip. He went to the British government in London. Rougier met with Winston Churchill between October 21 and 25.

Rougier later wrote in several books that these meetings led to an agreement. He called it the Mission secrète à Londres : les Accords Pétain-Churchill. However, the British government later said this was not true in an official report. Rougier's activities and writings led to him being dismissed from his teaching job in 1948. But he continued to be active in groups that supported Pétain throughout the 1950s. He also wrote books criticizing the épuration. This was a process in France after the war to remove people who had supported the Vichy government. Rougier said it was illegal. In 1951, Rougier also helped with an effort to tell the United Nations that the Allies had committed human rights violations during the Libération.

In the 1970s, Rougier formed another controversial political connection. This was with the Nouvelle Droite (New Right) of the French writer Alain de Benoist. Rougier had long been against Christianity. He also believed that "the West" had a better way of thinking than other cultures. These ideas matched the views of the Nouvelle Droite movement. Benoist republished some of Rougier's older works. In 1974, Benoist's research group, GRECE, published a new book by Rougier. It was called Le conflit du Christianisme primitif et de la civilisation antique.

Later Life and Death

Rougier lived to be 93 years old. He passed away on October 14, 1982. He was survived by his third wife, Lucy Elisabeth (born Herzka) Friedmann (1903-1989). Dr. Friedmann had been a secretary to Moritz Schlick. They married in 1942. Although Friedman had a daughter from a previous marriage, Rougier himself did not have any children.

Selected Works

• 1919. La matérialisation de l'énergie: essai sur la théorie de la relativité et sur la théorie des quanta. Paris: Gauthier-Villars. English translation by Morton Masius: 1921. Philosophy and the new physics; an essay on the relativity theory and the theory of quanta. Philadelphia: P. Blakiston's Son & Co.; London: Routledge.
• 1920. La philosophie géométrique de Henri Poincaré. Paris: F. Alcan.
• 1920. Les paralogismes du rationalisme: essai sur la théorie de la connaissance. Paris: F. Alcan.
• 1921. En marge de Curie, de Carnot et d'Einstein: études de philosophie scientifique. Paris: Chiron.
• 1921. La structure des théories déductives; théorie nouvelle de la déduction. Paris: F. Alcan.
• 1924. La scolastique et le thomisme. Paris: Gauthier-Villars.
• 1929. La mystique démocratique, ses origines, ses illusions. Paris: E. Flammarion.
• 1933. L'origine astronomique de la croyance pythagoricienne en l'immortalité céleste des âmes. Cairo: L'institut français d'archéologie orientale.
• 1938. Les mystiques économiques; comment l'on passe des démocraties libérales aux états totalitaires. Paris: Librairie de Médicis.
• 1945. Les accords Pétain, Churchill: historie d'une mission secrète. Montréal: Beauchemin.
• 1945. Créance morale de la France. Montréal: L. Parizeau.
• 1947. La France jacobine. Bruxelles: La Diffusion du livre.
• 1947. La défaite des vainqueurs. Bruxelles: La Diffusion du livre.
• 1947. La France en marbre blanc: ce que le monde doit à la France. Genève: Bibliothèque du Cheval ailé.
• 1948. De Gaulle contre De Gaulle. Paris: Éditions du Triolet.
• 1954. Les accord secrets franco-britanniques de l'automne 1940; histoire et imposture. Paris: Grasset.
• 1955. Traité de la connaissance. Paris: Gauthier-Villars.
• 1957. L'épuration. Paris: Les Sept couleurs.
• 1959. La religion astrale des Pythagoriciens. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
• 1960. La métaphysique et le langage. Paris: Flammarion.
• 1966. Histoire d'une faillite philosophique: la Scolastique. Paris: J.-J. Pauvert.
• 1969. Le Génie de l'Occident: essai sur la formation d'une mentalité. Paris: R. Laffont. English translation: 1971. The Genius of the West. Los Angeles: Nash.
• 1972. La genèse des dogmes chrétiens. Paris: A. Michel.
• 1974. Le conflit du Christianisme primitif et de la civilisation antique. Paris: GRECE.
• 1980. Astronomie et religion en Occident. Paris: Presses universitaires de France.

See also

In Spanish: Louis Rougier para niños