Rediscovering Émile Meyerson

Although Émile Meyerson arouses interest today, he was long forgotten in favor of Gaston Bachelard, who based his philosophical positions against him. A work sets out to rediscover his thought and reevaluate it by presenting what is unique about it, by retracing the relationships that Meyerson maintained with his contemporaries and by following the legacy he left.

The complexity of Meyersonian epistemology

Émile Meyerson has the reputation of professing a continuist history of science which would smooth out theoretical upheavals. This reputation has as its touchstone the notion of identity that Meyerson identifies everywhere and at all times. Identity is the tendency of the mind by which men of science reduce phenomena to their cause in order to explain them. It replaces the data of the senses to constitute the causes and objects which form our common sense. Meyerson says that we hypostasize the hypotheses we formulate, that is, we project them onto reality.

The work by Frédéric Fruteau de Laclos explains how Meyerson’s work, far from being ahistorical, allows us to understand scientific revolutions throughout history. Although the invariance of the principle of identity outlines the standardization of the history of science, it does not necessarily generate its homogenization. In Identity and realitypublished in 1908, Meyerson distinguishes the form of the intellect which is always the same, from the products of this form which themselves differ. This standardization is precisely the condition which allows identifications to be judged. Since the latter have a common nature, we can compare them and, thus, distinguish those which will prevail over the others.

Emile Meyerson
Emile Meyerson

The author shows that Meyersonian thought is much more complex than the generally accepted diagram of an opposition between the mind which seeks identity and reality which resists and does not allow itself to be entirely reduced. In fact, the opposition between the rational and the irrational is not only found between the mind and the real but it is entirely in nature and is also entirely in the mind. Each of the two poles cannot do without its other and knowledge takes the form of a mixture. Reality is irrational in one part, rational in another, just as the non-rational is at the heart of science presented as rational. Although it wants identity, reason knows that reality will not allow itself to be reduced. Therefore, either reason identifies the empirical manifold, but then it distorts it by supposing that the identity was initially in things. Either she accepts the diversity that abounds but, in this case, she cannot access the identity she is looking for. This mixed nature of knowledge which evolves in between is described by Meyerson as “ epistemological paradox “. By describing this contradiction without seeking to resolve it, Meyerson draws a history of science which remains in a state of insurmountable tension, a tension which allows it to progress. A surprisingly discontinuous character emanates from this paradoxological story. Men of science will readjust their theories based on the facts that emerge. The content of science will continue to be renewed because new facts to identify will continue to emerge.

Einstein’s support

If Meyerson’s thought is not ahistorical, it is not static either: it evolves and becomes clearer through contact with his contemporaries. At the end of the First World War, the theory of relativity formulated by Albert Einstein fascinated both representatives of French epistemology and those of the Vienna Circle. These two schools equally disqualify past theories. While in France these theories are considered obsolete in light of the latest state of science, the philosophers of the Vienna Circle put history at a distance in favor of the logical analysis of concepts. Meyerson agreed neither with one nor with the other: he demonstrated the immutability of the principle of identity by borrowing his examples indifferently from the latest state of science or from outdated theories.

By publishing The Relativistic Deduction (1925), the epistemologist showed that if the theory of relativity had made it possible to rationalize action at a distance, the irrational had not necessarily disappeared. Taking the example of quanta, he reaffirmed the tension inherent in the epistemological paradox and the role of the irrational so that reason is forced to surpass itself. Faced with the irrational that quanta constitute, scientists must therefore not renounce their realistic tendency but continue their effort at explanation. While Einstein had joined the “ scientific conception of the world » advocated in the Austrian capital, he would have, according to Frédéric Fruteau de Laclos, radically modified his philosophical positions after his meeting with Meyerson. The author returns to the 1922 debate which took place in Paris between Einstein and French philosophers. He recalls that, if Henri Bergson and Léon Brunschvicg did not succeed in dialogue with Einstein, Meyerson’s interpretation of the theory of relativity caught the attention of the illustrious scientist. Moving closer to Meyerson, Einstein then distanced himself from logical empiricism.

Despite the fame of this new ally, Meyerson’s thinking did not attract the crowds. It nevertheless found a reception space in the United States, mainly at the end of the Second World War, in particular thanks to the role of messenger played by Alexandre Koyré. Far from the Bachelardian school, it is the historiographical methods developed by Meyerson which will serve the young generation of American historians of science of which Thomas Kuhn is the most famous representative.

Meyerson’s contribution to psychology

Frédéric Fruteau de Laclos carries out a psychologizing reading of Meyerson’s work. He underlines the latter’s desire to make a connection between his philosophy of intellect and psychology. By publishing, in 1931, On the journey of thoughtMeyerson explained that his work was part of both logic and psychology. Identity is not only a logical principle, it is also a tendency of the mind that has psychological origins. Frédéric Fruteau de Laclos identifies the Meyersonian project which consists of following the itinerary of the intellect via its productions. Thus he enriches his reading of the work of Émile Meyerson with the contributions of historical psychology that he identified in the work of the epistemologist’s relative, Ignace Meyerson. Indeed, the latter relied on the analysis of cultural works to develop his psychology.

Continuing on this path, the author traces the extensions of the notion of identity in psychology. Traces of Meyersonism are found in the works of Eugène Minkowski, Arnaud Dandieu, Jacques Lacan and even the anthropological works of Philippe Descola. The psychiatrist Minkowski, for example, uses the tendency to identify to understand the illness suffered by schizophrenics. In some of them, he detects an excessive desire to rationalize reality to the point of only identifying geometric shapes. Minkowski describes this excessive identification as “ morbid geometry “. The personalist Arnaud Dandieu also sees identity as an illness from which the schizophrenic suffers. By detecting this common tendency among genius scientists as among individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia, Dandieu calls into question the division drawn between normal and pathological. Unlike Meyerson, he takes the analysis of singularities as his methodological starting point. Jacques Lacan, for his part, brings identification into play in this intermediary between attachment to the individual and consideration of the collective in his 1932 thesis. He presents psychoanalysis – and in particular that of Sigmund Freud – in line with the principles that Meyerson had described for science. These reuses had something to please the epistemologist ; the latter was delighted that his philosophy was used in such areas to understand the functioning of the intellect.

Conclusion

This work presents Meyerson’s work as a historical epistemology which intimately combines the philosophy of science with a philosophy – or psychology – of the scientific mind. Even more, it is indeed a “ philosophy of intellect » which Meyerson elaborates by making his conclusions relevant for the explanation of the path of common thought. By insisting as much on the logical effects of the confrontation between reason and nature as on the psychological implications of the hypotheses formulated by scientists, Frédéric Fruteau de Laclos shows Meyerson’s shift from epistemology towards a philosophical anthropology. Meyerson’s ambition is not to develop a metaphysics himself, but to account for the metaphysical positions of scientists. The epistemologist is content to describe the tendencies of the latter without adhering to them. By reestablishing this attitude of reserve, generally neglected, the author highlights the role that Meyersonism is likely to play in contemporary debates. In this way, the work belongs to the history of the philosophy of science, but is relevant for anyone interested in the history of thought in the XXe century.