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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 June 2015
‘Hegel in France’ is a title which poses two questions: (i) the extent of French acquaintance with Hegelian thought, (ii) the influence exercised by Hegel on French philosophy. Initially it is necessary to recall what Hegel's personal contacts were with the French and the time he spent in France.
In 1818 Victor Cousin (1792–1857), who had already been to Germany in 1817, suggested going to Munich. He wrote to Hegel asking him for letters of introduction. Hegel was still at Heidelberg, but had just been named Professor at Berlin and he replied on the 5 August 1818. Cousin thus met Hegel at Heidelberg. In 1824 while accompanying the Duke of Maitebello's son in Germany he was arrested in Dresden by Saxony police at the request of the Prussians who then imprisoned him in Berlin. Hegel intervened on his behalf to free him. In 1827 Hegel visited him in Paris, a visit about which Hegel wrote extensively to his wife, and Cousin followed him back to Germany.
To what extent had Cousin, who exercised a wide influence on French universities himself, been an Hegelian and would he have contributed to the diffusion of Hegelian philosophy in France? In the important year 1828 when the change of government allowed him to take up his teaching again, he declared: ‘In Germany, a philosophy which draws its glory fran calling itself the philosophy of nature, has succeeded subjective idealism and in France if not on the ruins of, at least in the face of empiricism, a philosophy has developed which certainly has pronounced spiritual dimension. What can we conclude from these changes?
1. Pour l'histoire de la philosophie moderne, 1847, vol. I, p. 298–99Google Scholar.
2. Journal des Débats, Tuesday, 25 01 1870, p. 3 Google Scholar.
3. Les philosophies classiques du XIXe siecle, p. 132.
4. Cf. D. Fosca, L'influence de Hegel sur Taine théoriclen de la connaissance et de l'art.
5. La Métaphysique et la science, vol. II, p. 462 Google Scholar.
6. Gentile recounted how, at an International philosophical congress, hé said to Bergson that he found resemblaces between his philosphy and that of Hegel. Bergson was very surprised and replied that Hegel was a rationalist but he finished by confessing to Gentile that he did not really know Hegel's work.
7. However, Fr. von Hugel, a friend of Chevalier, wrote to C.C.J. Webb having read the booki ‘It is strange that true Christian believers and those who lite him have aspiration to be good catholics are wholly unable to restrain their chauvinism1, Letter of 24 January 1922.
8. These lectures were first published in 1947.
9. Introduction á la lecture de Hegel, p. 570–571.
10. ‘A propos de l'Introduction á la phénoménologle de Hegel’, by A. Kojéve, in Deucalion, no. 5, p. 77–99.
11. Appeared in the Archives de Philosophle, 33, 1970, p. 675–700 Google Scholar.
12. De l'actualité historlque, 1960. cf. A Jeanniére ‘La triple dialectique de l'histoire. Introduction á l'oeuvre du Pére Fessard, Gaston, Archives de Philosophie. 1961, p. 243–259 Google Scholar. Hong-Giao, Nguyen, Le Verbs dans l'Histoire. La philosophie de l'historlcité du P.G. Fessard, 1974 Google Scholar.
13. See also Koyre, A., ‘Papport sur l'état des étude hégéliennes en France’ in Etudes d'histoire de la pensée philosophlque, 1961 Google Scholar; Forest, A., ‘L'hégélianisme en France’ in Rivista di Filosofia Neo-Soolastica, 1954 Google Scholar.