The classical Reason is too often linked with the conquest of Nature and with modern scientific and technological world. But Bruno Pinchard shows that this kind of philosophizing is a source of freedom in the relation that is endeavored to be established between Faith and Rationality. The classical Reason is equidistant from the might of science and the dogmas of faith. This Reason is an actualization of pure thought. In this perspective, the author declares 12 propositions that would need to be developed with historical proves to be fully justified. Meanwhile, these first steps have a systematic aim, like all the conceptual constructions of classical thought. The paper is concluded with a short “Coda” about the necessity of love to give strength to the reason to achieve ultimate goals of the latter.

      The translation is made according to the text which is a revised and updated version of the article: Pinchard B. Quelques principes de raison classique. L’Archicube, n° 24, juin 2018, pp. 156–164. Paris: École Normale Supérieure.

Henri Delacroix is a French philosopher, religious scholar and psychologist, a student and follower of Bergson. He began his activity with the study of mysticism. Following the thesis “An Essay on Speculative Mysticism in Germany in the 14th Century” (1899), where the author analyzed the teachings of Meister Eckhart and the associated intellectual movement, he published several other works where he examined other historical and national forms of mysticism. Describing different types of mystical intuition, conducting a detailed psychological analysis, Delacroix interpreted the higher forms of mystical experience, contrary to the opinions of some researchers, as an expression of deep inner life and not as a special type of neurosis. His work Studies in the History and Psychology of Mysticism: the Great Christian Mystics (1908) was highly appreciated by contemporaries, and the approach he proposed to this subject gradually gained recognition and became classical. In his philosophical and psychological works, Delacroix acted as an opponent of associationism and mental atomism. He developed the treatment of consciousness as an entity, considering the various forms and manifestations of consciousness and the unconscious in their interconnection and mutual influence. He paid special attention to the relationship between language and thinking as well as child psychology and the psychology of art. In his book Language and Thinking (1924), Delacroix, relying on the concept of F. de Saussure, developed the distinction of language and speech proposed by the latter.

How can we explain that our dreams are often not a chaotic, incoherent pile of images, but a definite, perfectly organized sequence of images? How do the sensations and images fit in dreams, what kind of logic do they obey, what is the role of emotions and ideas? Henri Delacroix formulates these questions in his article and offers his answers, delineating and examining different types of dreams. Taking into account and critically evaluating the concepts of contemporary researchers who studied the problem of dreams, Delacroix puts forward his own hypothesis. From his point of view, at the basis of many dreams lies an extremely changeable and mobile basic idea which is able to direct the movement of images that are its representation. Images represent the development of a mental theme or a combination of many topics. Between a dream and a daydream, according to Delacroix, there is only a difference in complexity and systematization.

        Translation of the publication: Delacroix H. Sur la structure logique du rêve // Revue de métaphysique et de morale. 1904. T. 12. № 6. P. 921–934.

This article presents the intellectual approach of an important thinker of the contemporary world, Michel de Certeau (1925-1986), to show its coherence. At the first look his work seems confusing: it addresses both the mystical phenomena of the past and the daily life of his contemporaries. His interests are multifaceted: he was at the same time theologian, historian, sociologist, philosopher of history. His work is a permanent research in a world in perpetual transformation. Although his main field of research was history, his first works dealt with theological problems. The interest of M. de Certeau begins by the analysis of mysticism as a phenomenon characteristic of the beginning of modern times. This leads him to take a broader interest in history as a set of events that cannot be reduced to a “system”. The spiritual experience of that period offers a clue to understanding current events. A significant part of M. de Certeau’s works deals with the problem of “modernity” and “everyday life”. There is a will to “think about event”. In the last part of his life, he works on the anthropology of the everyday life of “ordinary” people, in order to show the capacity they have to “invent” their existence by “tinkering” with the materials they receive. The religious dimension permeates all his work, his religious themes embrace both historical and contemporary Christianity. Christianity is for him the “religion of event”. That is why it must always remain open to meeting the other. Throughout his creativity Michel de Certeau shows a great concern for the singularity of every person, spiritual experience, interrelations with others.

The author examines the alternative interpretations of the French revolution, which were offered by outstanding thinkers, its contemporaries. For philosophical consciousness, a revolution is always an occasion to express the most common social problems, to outline this or that vision of history as such. The article reviews the main features of Barnave’s and SaintMartin’s theories, which present naturalistic and theological interpretations of the revolutionary events. While Barnave considered the revolution in light of the theory of progress, Saint-Martin understood it through the concept of original sin. Saint-Martin saw the revolution as means for religion renovation, Barnave interpreted the revolution as a phase in the course of fading of religion’s social role. While Barnave’s philosophical methodology was substantially based on Enlightenment sensationalism, the position of Saint Martin relied on its denial. Despite all the differences between Barnave’s and Saint-Martin’s points of view, they shared similar intentions, analogous motives. First of all, there was a belief in need of revolution, in its justice and importance for mankind. The revolution was not understood by them as the collapse of common sense and foundations of society. On the contrary, the revolution was inevitable payment for abuses of the past, and it symbolized the beginning of a path to the better life awaiting mankind. The more the revolution receded into the past, the more proponents of its secular interpretation appeared. The primary focus was on the interests of social estates and classes, the issues of distribution of property and formation of social hierarchy. The providential approach to history lost its popularity, looked less and less feasible in the opinion of very numerous group of scholars. Nevertheless, the various elements of this approach remain in culture, they are present in the breath, rhythm and development of culture, they are reproduced again and again.

Marcel Proust’s works contain a lot of ideas consonant with the ideas that were actively discussed by philosophers of his time. Many philosophers focused on the issues of perception, memory, will, freedom, personal identity, etc., which constituted an important part of academic curriculum. Proust familiarized himself with the issues studying philosophy at the Lyceum (he was taught by Alphonse Darlu) and at the Sorbonne. In his novel In Search of Lost Time, Proust describes an existential experience of his character viewing these issues from a particular perspective, through the prism of the main character’s lifelong search of his calling. He gradually proceeds from philosophical psychology exploring the interaction of memories and impressions in a particular perception, to philosophy proper, to metaphysics aimed at understanding the truth, at going beyond time. The article traces some moments of this transition, shows that for Proust it is not just the work of memory that is important but the emphasis on those states of consciousness where the present and the past coincide, merge, and thereby we go beyond time, to eternity. The author analyzes some images and signs that accompanied the character of the novel on the way to the realization of his calling. Particular attention is paid to the Proustian interpretation of the role of art in changing and enriching the perception of the world, as well as the importance in human life of a habit in which positive and negative aspects are highlighted. Proust himself believed that a work of art is an optical instrument through which the readers begin to discern in themselves what they would otherwise fail to see. His own novel was such an instrument.

Simone de Beauvoir is a representative of one of the leading philosophical schools in the middle of the 20th century. The article presents Beauvoir’s artistic method, applied in her novel The Mandarins, and examines the theoretical and biographical sources of the novel. The author demonstrates the place that the novel has in the Beauvoir’s literary and philosophical heritage and reveals the genre features of the work, introducing some special terms such as engaged, modern or philosophical novel and testimonial autobiographical project. The article also analyzes the novel’s literary form and the binary structure of the narrative. The study of the main characters, who are Henri Perron, Anne Dubreuilh and her husband Robert, allows to give a couple of narrative lines. First of them is the inner line that opens the reflective, contemplative and intimate life of one of the main characters – Anne. The second one is the outer line that means that the reader receives the information about characters from the Henry’s actions. Basing on this structure, we draw a conclusion about the modifications in the genre of existential novel in the postwar years. The new themes can be found in the literature. Authors introduce to readers the certain social reality through the inner life of some characters – intellectuals, novelists or philosophers. The thesis about the inner transformation of the genre is proved on Beauvoir’ and Jean-Paul Sartre’s works and on the prewar works of Sartre and Albert Camus. Beauvoir’s new literary methods and plots, which are the logical development of her work, made her novel one of the pioneers in the postwar literature.

The article considers the authentic and extreme forms of metaphysics. Antonin Artaud’s personality is at the center of attention. The author endeavors to verbally explicate his metaphysics, which is not strictly verbal. The explication of Artaud’s modern metaphysics is carried out in comparison with the triad of the “ancient modernist” Gorgias. The role of nothingness and the ambivalent attitude of contemporary metaphysicians to Artaud are examined. In the author’s opinion, the position of A. Artaud can be expressed in the following theses: 1) nothingness is the speculative side of the border (between two somethings) that does not unite but separates the being; 2) the incarnation of nothingness is fraught with both an irrevocable fall into nihilism and an annihilation of nothingness; 3) during the incarnation-annihilation of nothingness, the disunity of being is ousted and its fullness is reached; 4) the sought-after fullness is different from amorphous totality and from law-abiding structuredness; 5) anarchic, in some sense, fullness of being demands a unique language which is free from repressive unification. Understanding the experience of Antonin Artaud allows to answer the questions: “What it means to be a metaphysician? Who is he, a metaphysician? What is he like?” He is the one who emphatically appeals to the flesh (both present and becoming, naturally transforming); who, moreover, is not limited to the physical as well as is not alienated from it for the sake of the technical; who does not deny the role of praxis but subordinates it to poiesis; who does not seclude himself in verbal being but appeals to being as such, to its boundaries and limits.

At the heart of the dialog between the art piece and the world, the artist works at communicating his sensations. For Gauguin, this work involves a self-claimed philosophical bent, as he considers his paintings as the result of a philosophical refoundation of color. His idea is that the artist’s sensations don’t stem from his contact with the empirical world but rather with the metaphysical one. This is due to the fact that the painter competes with nature: his imitation is inventive (no matching with the original) and his truth is creative (true to his subjective perception). An artist-philosopher, who is also a thinking subject, thus reasserts the pragmatic necessity of the perception. Being diverse, the color is an instrument by which the artist expresses his thinking (he reveals his metaphysical sensations and offers them to the receptor). There is an arrangement that reveals the inner musical harmony of things and beings – by which the painter thinks out from words, within the symphony of pure colors.