21 - Hippolyte Taine (1828–1893)

Summary

From his early youth Hippolyte Taine's ambition was to be a philosopher. Sainte-Beuve recognized Taine's approach as an artifice with surprising results, for what the doctoral thesis on La Fontaine actually provided was an indirect method of discussing the nature of Taine's hobby-horse: the self. Leaving aside his youthful search for the mysterious origin or hypothetical purpose of the self, Taine here claims to offer a scientific analysis of its operation through the imagination and the language of the poet. Taine's thinking was unquestionably informed by his reading of philosophy both at the Lycée Bourbon and at the Ecole Normale. Taine's idea concerned the nature of the self. His ambition was to be a philosopher but his method of inquiry was that of science and he applied it to all aspects of humanity, to literature, to art, to history and to psychology.