Ravaisson-Mollien, Jean-Gaspard Félix Lacher (1813–1900)

(Ravaisson here criticizes the philosophy of Aristotle, because he sees it as analytic philosophy, while he himself sought a synthetic position.)

(Ravaisson posits that habit is not simply a negative force, but allows the mind to free itself. In this way free will can be seen as part of the spontaneity of nature.)

(Ravaisson shows that French nineteenth-century philosophy consists of two schools of thought – materialism and spiritualism – and concludes his work with the triumph of the latter, the philosophy of spirit. This work is often referred to as the Rapport after some later editions, entitled Rapport sur la philosophie en France au dix-neuvième siècle.)

(Overview of Ravaisson’s philosophy, in which he claims that metaphysical truth transcends conventional thought processes and that it is necessary ‘to love in order to understand’.)

(This work consolidates the fragments of Ravaisson’s thought and brings to light the philosophical importance of free will, emotion and love.)

(Revised edition of Testament philosophique (1901).)

(Ravaisson’s unfinished third volume on Aristotle, posthumously assembled from manuscripts.)

(A clear, complete, brilliant and perfectly accessible exposition, which can perhaps only be criticized for ‘bergsonifying’ Ravaisson.)

(In analysing the questions of Plato and Greek philosophy, Chaignet distinguishes the idea of beauty from that of the Good, and the idea of benevolence from that of moral perfection.)

(Dopp shows how Ravaisson, starting from his thoughts on Aristotle, Kant and Schelling, worked towards unifying mind and nature in concrete terms.)

(Janicaud criticizes the Bergsonian interpretation of Ravaisson, while recognizing that it illuminates the real difficulties of a philosophy which explains through life what cannot be explained through thought.)

(Texts collected and edited by Janicaud, with an interview with Alain Pasquier, head of the Department of Antiquities at the Louvre. This collection presents the original aspects of Ravaisson’s personality that led him to be both a philosopher and lover of art.)

(Dissatisfied by theories in which beauty consists in proportion, Lévêque rediscovers the principles of order and strength through the works of Malebranche and Leibniz. He gives a precise definition of what beauty consists in: it is greatness tempered by order, and expresses strength and will.)