The Idealist Illusion and Other Essays Translation and Introduction
I was very happy when in 1997 Fiachra Long came to spend part of his sabbatical leave at the Archives Maurice Blondel at Louvain-Ia-Neuve. This allowed him to bring together and complete his translation of three important articles from Maurice Blondel, kn
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STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION Volume 22
The titles published in this series are listed at the end of this volume.
THE IDEALIST ILLUSION AND OTHER ESSAYS Translation and Introduction by Fiachra Long Annotations by Fiachra Long and Claude Troisfontaines
by MAURICE BLONDEL
SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V.
A c.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-94-015-9363-2 (eBook) ISBN 978-90-481-5595-8 DOI 10.1007/978-94-015-9363-2
Translated from the French language by Fiachra Long, Maurice Blondel: Oeuvres completes, tome II, © PUF, 1997. With kind permission of Presses Universitaires de France (PUF), Paris, France
Printed on acid-free paper All Rights Reserved
© 2000 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 2000 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2000 No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner.
To Margaret (Maire ad), good mother and friend, in loving memory
CONTENTS
Preface (Claude Troisfontaines) Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations Examples of Blondel's Script
ix xi xiii XIV-XV
INTRODUCTION Determining the Parameters Ideas as Dynamic Motions Blondel's Science of Practice Ideas as Instruments Blondel's Action (1893) The Fallout from Action (1893) The Three Articles The Idealist Illusion The Elementary Principle Aristotle Kant Bergson The Starting Point Jouffroy This Translation
1 1
3 9
11 17 31 41 41 45 48 50 52 57
58 65
MAURICE BLONDEL: The Idealist Illusion Critical Notes
75
89
The Elementary Principle of a Logic of the Moral Life Critical Notes
95 110
The Starting Point of Philosophical Research January 1906 June 1906 Critical Notes
114 129 145 149 151
Index Appendix
Vll
PREFACE I was very happy when in 1997 Fiachra Long came to spend part of his sabbatical leave at the Archives Maurice Blondel at Louvain-Ia-Neuve. This allowed him to bring together and complete his translation of three important articles from Maurice Blondel, known as the philosopher of Aix-en-Province. These three articles fonn a unity: they make explicit certain aspects of the method used in the great thesis of 1893, Action. This thesis, it is well known, aroused many polemic debates after its appearance. Thomist theologians accused Blondel of turning back towards Kantian idealism whereas the philosophers of the Revue de metaphysique et de morale accused him on the contrary of falling back on a pre-critical realism. The three articles translated here, each in its own way, attempt to pass beyond these two opposite charges. The Idealist Illusion (1898) underlines the fact that the content of consciousness should be unfurled as it appears, by withdrawing from any idealist or realist prejudice, before judging the consistency of its content as a whole. In this wa
