As we can think of nothing save in relation to consciousness and consequently we cannot conceive the universe apart from personality, our knowledge of the universe, our philosophies, our beliefs are “personal” constructions. But they need not be on that account merely subjective and individualistic in character, for they refer to personality in its wide sense, a sense shared by other persons. This has important consequences for the problem of certitude in knowledge and Renouvier has here certain affinities to the pragmatist standpoint.
His discussion of certitude is very closely bound up with his treatment of the problem of freedom, but we may indicate here Renouvier’s attitude to Belief and Knowledge, a problem in which he was aided by the work of his friend Jules Lequier,[[30]] whom he quotes in his second Essai de Critique générale. Renouvier considers it advisable to approach the problem of certitude by considering its opposite, doubt. In a famous passage in his second Essai he states the circumstances under which we do not doubt—namely, “when we see, when we know, when we believe.” Owing to our liability to error (even seeing is not believing, and we frequently change our minds even about our “seeing”), it appears that belief is always involved, and more correctly “we believe that we see, we believe that we know.” Belief is a state of consciousness involved in a certain affirmation of which the motives show themselves as adequate. Certitude arises when the possibility of an affirmation of the contrary is entirely rejected by the mind. Certitude thus appears as a kind of belief. All knowledge, Renouvier maintains, involves an affirmation of will. It is here we see the contrast so strongly marked between him and Renan, who wished us to “let things think themselves out in us.” “Every affirmation in which consciousness is reflective is subordinated, in consciousness, to the determination to affirm.” Our knowledge, our certitude, our belief, whatever we prefer to call it, is a construction not purely intellectual but involving elements of feeling and, above all, of will. Even the most logically incontrovertible truth are sometimes unconvincing. This is because certitude is not purely intellectual; it is une affaire passionnelle.[[31]] Renouvier here not only approaches the pragmatist position, but he recalls the attitude to will, assumed by Maine de Biran. For the Cartesian formula De Biran had suggested the substitution of Volo, ergo sum. The inadequacy of the the Cogito, ergo sum is remarked upon by Lequier, whose treatment of the question of certainty Renouvier follows. As all demonstration is deductive in character and so requires existing premises, we cannot expect the première vérité to be demonstrable. If, from the or certainty, we must turn to the will to create belief, or certainty, we must turn to the will to create beliefs, for no evidence or previous truths exist for us. The Cogito, ergo sum really does not give us a starting point, as Descartes claimed for it, since there is no proper sequence from cogito to sum. Here we have merely two selves, moi-pensée and moi-objet. We need a live spark to bridge this gap to unite the two into one complete living self; this is found in moi-volonté, in a free act of will. This free act of will affirms the existence of the self by uniting in a synthetic judgment the thinking-self to the object-self. “I refuse,” says Renouvier, quoting Lequier, “to follow the work of a knowledge which would not be mine. I accept the certainty of which I am the author.” The première vérité is a free personal act of faith. Certainty in philosophy or in science reposes ultimately upon freedom and the consciousness of freedom.
[30] Jules Lequier was born in 1814 and entered the Ecole polytechnique in 1834, leaving two years later for a military staff appointment. This he abandoned in 1838. He died in 1862 after having destroyed most of his writings. Three Years after his death was published the volume, La Recherche d’une première Vérité, fragments posthumes de Jules Lequier. The reader should note the very interesting remarks by Renouvier at the end of the first volume of his Psychologie rationnelle, 1912 ed., pp. 369-393, on Lequier and his Philosophy, also the Fragments reprinted by Renouvier in that work, Comment trouver, comment chercher, vol. i., on Subject and Object (vol. ii.), and on Freedom.
[31] Lotze employs a similar phrase, eine Gemüths-sache.
Here again, as in the philosophy of Cournot, we find the main emphasis falling upon the double problem of the period. It is in reality one problem with two aspects—the relation of science to morality, or, in other words, the place and significance of freedom.
The general influence of Renouvier has led to the formation of a neo-critical “school” of thought, prominent members of which may be cited: Pillon and Prat, his intimate friends, Séailles and Darlu, who have contributed monographs upon their master’s teaching, together with Hamelin, Liard and Brochard, eminent disciples. Hamelin (1856-1907), whose premature and accidental death deprived France of a keen thinker, is known for his Essai sur les Eléments principaux de la Représentation (1907), supplementing the doctrines of Renouvier by those of Hegel.
In the work of Liard (1846-1917), La Science positive et la Métaphysique (1879), we see a combination of the influence of Vacherot, Renouvier and Kant. He was also perplexed by the problem of efficient and final causes as was Lachelier, whose famous thesis De l’Induction appeared eight years earlier. While Lachelier was influenced by Kant, he, none the less, belongs to the current of the new spiritualism which we shall presently examine. Liard, however, by his adherence to many critical and neo-critical standpoints may be justly looked upon as belonging to that great current of which Renouvier is the prominent thinker.
Brochard (1848-1907) is mainly known by his treatise De l’Erreur (1879) and his volumes on Ethics, De la Responsabilité morale (1876), and De l’Universalité des Notions morales (1876), in all of which the primacy of moral considerations is advocated in a tone inspired by Renouvier’s strong moral standpoint. The work De l’Erreur emphasises the importance of the problem of freedom as being the crux of the whole question involved in the relation of science and morality. Adhering to the neo-critical doctrines in general, and particularly to the value of the practical reason, Brochard, by his insistence upon action as a foundation for belief, has marked affinities with the doctrines of Blondel (and Olle-Laprune), the significance of whose work will appear at the end of our next section.
The phenomenalism of Renouvier was followed up by two thinkers, who cannot, however, be regarded as belonging to his neo-critical school. In 1888 Gourd published his work entitled Le Phénomène, which was followed six years later by the slightly more coherent attempt of Boirac to base a philosophy upon the phenomenalism which expresses itself so rigidly in Hume. In his book L’Idée du Phénomène (1894), he had, however, recourse to the Leibnitzian doctrines, which had finally exercised a considerable influence over Renouvier himself.