Editing Maine de Biran (section)

==Thought==

Only a few of Biran's writings appeared during his lifetime: the essay on [[Habit (psychology)|habit]] (''Influence de l'habitude sur la faculté de penser'', "The Influence of Habit on the Faculty of Thinking", 1802), a critical review of [[Pierre Laromiguière]]'s lectures (1817), and the philosophical portion of the article "Leibnitz" in the ''Biographie universelle'' (1819). A [[treatise]] on the analysis of [[thought]] (''Sur la décomposition de la pensée'', "On the Decomposition of Thought") was never printed. In 1834 these writings, together with the essay entitled ''Nouvelles considérations sur les rapports du physique et du moral de l'homme'', were published by [[Victor Cousin]], who in 1841 added three volumes, under the title ''Œuvres philosophiques de Maine de Biran''. But the publication (in 1859) by Édouard Naville<!--Not to be confused with the Egyptologist--> (from manuscripts placed at his father's disposal by Biran's son) of the ''Œuvres inédites de Maine de Biran'', in three volumes, first rendered possible a connected view of his philosophical development.<ref name="EB1911"/>

[[File:Maine de Biran.JPG|thumb|Portrait of Maine de Biran, by [[Jean Bernard Duvivier]], 1798.]]

At first a [[sensualist]], like [[Étienne Bonnot de Condillac|Condillac]] and [[John Locke]], next an [[Intellectualism|intellectualist]], he finally became a [[Mysticism|mystical]] [[Christian theosophy|theosophist]]. The ''Essai sur les fondements de la psychologie'' represents the second stage of his philosophy, the fragments of the ''Nouveaux essais d'anthropologie'' the third. Biran's early essays in philosophy were written from the point of view of Locke and Condillac, but showed signs of his later interests. Dealing with the formation of habits, he is compelled to note that passive impressions do not furnish a complete or adequate explanation. With Laromiguière he distinguishes attention as an active effort, of no less importance than the passive receptivity of [[sense]], and like [[Joseph Butler]], he distinguishes passively formed customs from active habits. He concluded that Condillac's notion of passive receptivity as the one source of conscious experience was an error of method – in short, that the mechanical mode of viewing consciousness as formed by external influence was fallacious and deceptive. For it he proposed to substitute the genetic method, whereby human conscious experience might be exhibited as growing or developing from its essential basis in connection with external conditions. The essential basis he finds in the real consciousness, of [[Self (psychology)|self]] as an active striving power, and the stages of its development, corresponding to what one may call the relative importance of the external conditions and the reflective clearness of self-consciousness he designates as the affective, the perceptive and the reflective. In connexion with this Biran treats most of the obscure problems which arise in dealing with conscious experience, such as the mode by which the organism is cognized, the mode by which the organism is distinguished from extra-organic things, and the nature of those general ideas by which the relations of things are known – [[cause]], [[Power (physics)|power]], [[force]], etc.<ref name="EB1911"/>

In the last stage of his philosophy, Biran distinguished the animal existence from the [[human]], under which the three forms above noted are classed. And both from the life of the spirit, in which human thought is brought into relation with the supersensible, divine system of things. This stage is left imperfect. Altogether Biran's work presents a very remarkable specimen of deep [[Metaphysics|metaphysical]] thinking directed by preference to the psychological aspect of experience.<ref name="EB1911"/>

So, it has been said there are three stages marking the development of his philosophy. Up to 1804, a stage called by Naville "the philosophy of sensation", he was a follower of Condillac's sensism, as modified by de Tracy, which he soon abandoned in favour of a system based on an analysis of internal reflection. In the second stage – the philosophy of will – 1804–18, to avoid materialism and fatalism, he embraced the doctrine of immediate apperception, showing that man knows himself and exterior things by the resistance to his effort. On reflecting he remarks on the voluntary effort which differentiates his internal from his external experience, thus learning to distinguish between the ego and the non-ego. In the third stage – the philosophy of religion – after 1818, Biran advocated a mystical intuitional psychology. To man's two states of life: representation (common to animals), and volition (volition, sensation, and perception), he adds a third: love or life of union with God, in which the life of Divine grace absorbs representation and volition. Biran's style is laboured, but he is reckoned by Cousin as the greatest French metaphysician from the time of Malebranche. His genius was not fully recognized till after his death, as the essay "Sur l'habitude" (Paris, 1803) was the only book that appeared under his name during his lifetime; but his reputation was firmly established on the publication of his writings, partly by Cousin (''Œuvres philosophiques de Maine de Biran'', Paris, 1834-41), and partly by Naville (''Œuvres inédites de Maine de Biran'', Paris, 1859).