Jean Izoulet

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Jean-Bernard-Joachim Izoulet-Loubatières (20 August 1854 – 25 May 1929) was a French sociologist and professor of social philosophy at the Collège de France.

Biography

Jean Izoulet was born in Miramont, Tarn-et-Garonne, the son of Jean Bertrand Izoulet, a public schoolteacher, and his wife Anne (née Loubatières). After completing his secondary education at the Collège de Moissac, he prepared for the entrance exam to the École Normale Supérieure (ENS) at the Lycée Ingres in Montauban, then at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris.[1]

A student at the ENS from 1874 to 1877, then a lecturer at the Lycée de Bourg-en-Bresse, he came 7th in the agrégation in philosophy in 1880. Izoulet took a leave of absence from 1880 to 1884, first to serve as private secretary to Paul Bert (Minister of Public Instruction and Religious Affairs in the Léon Gambetta government), then to spend four years studying the natural and medical sciences, in particular under Charles Robin.[1] Jules Ferry entrusted him with a series of courses in psychology and ethics for primary school teachers in the Seine department.[1] He then taught at the Lycées de Douai, Henri-IV and Condorcet (from 1884 to 1897), and from 1897, at the Collège de France.

The works he published all related to the same theme of socio-political correction, intellectual, moral and explicitly religious. They are driven by the central idea of the absolute primacy of society, the nerve of which should be a syncretic religion in which Christianity is completely transformed.[1] His thesis The Modern City provoked a categorical reaction from La Croix in 1895: "Violent, exalted and chimerical thesis (...) sectarian and Jacobin materialism, threatening vengeance against all who do not think like him"[2] and was soon put on the Index.[3]

Izoulet's inaugural lecture at the Collège de France on December 16, 1897, and subsequent ones, earned him a warm tribute from Maurice Barrès

What Izoulet has done is of immense importance; it marks a considerable date in the history of ideas (...): he has socialized the idea of the "I" (...) This powerful doctrine is frightening in its novelty to socialists in whom the old liberal spirit remains. An egalitarian sentiment that may well be mingled with envy is less concerned with protecting the weak than with diminishing the strong. (...) " The individual as principle and as end, and, as means, an association where there is division of labor", declares Izoulet. By this we mean, and this is clear enough, that everything starts with the individual and everything comes back to the individual, but that he is powerless on his own, and that he is only worthwhile through an association in which each person is ranked according to the services he can render.[4]

and to be repeatedly heckled, particularly during the January 13, 1898 lecture, by "socialist students", as reported in La Lanterne:

"Are you or are you not a socialist?" they asked him repeatedly. But Mr. Izoulet refused to answer their question. The result was a violent uproar (...). "Long Live Social Politics! Down with Reaction," the socialist students protested.[5]

Izoulet strongly opposed the sociology of Émile Durkheim. He translated the works of Thomas Carlyle and Emerson into French.[6]

Due to health problems, he was replaced as professor at the Collège de France by Georges Blondel from 1917 to 1922 and again from 1927 to 1929. He died in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, at his home, 1 boulevard de Beauséjour, after a four-month illness.[7]

A square in Moissac, where his bust stands, bears his name.[8]

Private life

On December 3, 1906, in Paris, he married Marie Marmottan, daughter of physician and former member of parliament Henri Marmottan.[9]

In popular culture

Dyce Lashmar, the central character in George Gissing's 1901 novel Our Friend the Charlatan is presented as a discipule of Izoulet. Lashmar appears in the book reading enthusiastically The Modern City (1894), Izoulet's most famous work.[10]

Works

  • "Le suicide des démocraties," Revue de Paris, Vol. III (1895), pp. 147–61.
  • L'âme française et les universités nouvelles selon l'esprit de la Révolution (1892)
  • De J.-J. Russeo (J.-J. Rousseau): utrum misopolis fuerit an philopolis, ex genavensi codice cum ceteris Russei operibus collato quaeritur (1894)
  • La cité moderne et la métaphysique de la sociologie : le suicide des démocraties (1894)[lower-alpha 1]
  • "J.-J. Rousseau aristocrate," II, La Revue hebdomadaire, No. 2/3 (1909)
  • Les vingt-quatre armures de la Pangermanie, ou Qu'appelez-vous donc désarmer l'Allemagne? (1920)
  • Renan et l'Angleterre, ou l'École de Manchester et la perdition de l'Occident (1920)
  • Sans Russie, pas de France! (1920)
  • La rentrée de Dieu dans l'école et dans l'État (1924)
  • Paris: Capitale des religions ou la mission d'Israël (1926)
  • La Métamorphose de l'Église ou la Sociologie, fille du Décalogue au Collège de France. Les quatre bases scientifiques de l'idée laïque Moïse et Aristote, pères du laïcisme Copernic et Claude Bernard, pères du panthéisme, ce super-laïcisme (1928)
  • Le Panthéisme d'Occident ou le super-laïcisme (1928)

Notes

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Thesis for the doctorate, presented at the Faculté des lettres de Paris.

Citations

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Guy, Alain (1986). "Les philosophes du Quercy blanc Numa Boudet, Jean Izoulet, Jean Delvolvé," Mémoires de l'académie des sciences, inscriptions et belles-lettres de Toulouse, Vol. CXLVIII, No. 7,‎ pp. 175–201.
  2. ↑ "Gazette du jour: encore un!," La Croix, No. 3595‎ (22 janvier 1895), p. 1.
  3. ↑ "Rome: décret de l'Index," La Croix, No. 3872‎ (13 décembre 1895), p. 1.
  4. ↑ Barrès, Maurice (1er janvier 1898). "Izoulet au Collège de France," Le Journal, No. 1922, p. 1.
  5. ↑ "Au Collège de France," La Lanterne, No. 7573‎ (15 janvier 1898), p. 2.
  6. ↑ Ouston, Philip (1974). "The Cult of Heroes." In: The Imagination of Maurice Barres. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, pp. 136–59.
  7. ↑ "Nécrologie," Le Temps (29 mai 1929), p. 5.
  8. ↑ "Jean Izoulet," Memopatrimoissac. Retrieved 6 April 2021.
  9. ↑ "Informations diverses," Le Temps (3 décembre 1906), p. 3.
  10. ↑ Pearson, Richard (2004). "George Gissing and the Ethnographer's 'I': Civilisation in "The Nether World" and "Eve's Ransom"," Critical Survey, Vol. XVI, No. 1, pp. 35–51.

References

  • Bocquillon, Émile (1943). Izoulet et son Œuvre. Paris: Baudinière.
  • Fonsegrive, George (1896). Les livres et les idées, 1894-1895. Paris: Victor Lecoffre.
  • Logue, William (1983). From Philosophy to Sociology: The Evolution of French Liberalism, 1870-1914. De Kalb: Northern Illinois University Press.
  • Terral, Hervé (2006). "Jean Izoulet (1854-1929): Un penseur quercynois à redécouvrir," Bulletin de la Société archéologique de Tarn-et-Garonne, Vol. CXXXI, pp. 125–33.

External links

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