6 - Yves R. Simon: a philosopher's quest for science and prudence

Summary

From a plentitude of early loves and political concerns, Yves Simon's call to philosophy emerged as dominant and defining for his life. He wrote some plays and poetry and at one point thought that he might devote himself to literary studies. At a later time, fascinated by the enterprise of modern empirical science and what it could do for humankind, he began down the path of medical studies. Entering his university years, he was engaged by political issues that lingered from the great divide of France's past, and then, ever more passionately so, by the struggles for genuine peace in the 1920s and ’30s and a possible Fascist future for France and Europe. His Catholic family of republican convictions knew firsthand the sufferings of World War I, and his own life (1903–61) seemed marked by a special capacity to appreciate the concrete historical contingencies that must and should bear on specific moral and hence political decisions. It is not surprising that Simon was attracted to philosophy both as a way to understand the ingredients of good moral decisions and as the true and complete science, in the classic Aristotelian sense. Near the very end of his life, he appeared especially interested in protecting the sphere of practical judgment or prudence from both philosophy and social science. What direction he provided to politics was democratic in character; what direction to education, specifically education for political choices and leadership, was humanist, emphasizing historical and literary learning and the enrichment of direct human experience and cautioning against a curricular dominance of philosophy and theology.