Minora de las labias

See also: Alain, Chartier, Emile Chartier (homonymy)

Alain , of his true name Emile-Auguste Chartier (Mortagne-with-Pole, March 3rd 1868 - Vésinet, June 2nd 1951, buried with the Cemetery of the Father-Lachaise) is a Philosophe, Journaliste and Professor French.

Biography

In 1881, it enters to the college of Alençon where it spends five years. June 13rd 1956, the college of Alençon took the more famous name of sound raises: College Alain.

After the National university, it is received with the aggregation philosophy then is named Professor successively with the College Joseph Loth with Pontivy, Dupuy of Lome with Lorient, Rouen (college Corneille) and with Paris (Lycée Condorcet then with the Lycée Michelet). Starting from 1903, it publishes in various newspapers ( the Dispatch of Lorient then the Dispatch of Rouen and Normandy ) nearly 3000 short chronicles, under the signature of Alain, the " Matter of the dimanche" , then " Matter of the lundi" in the form of weekly chronicles. Become professor of Khâgne to the College Henri-Iv in 1909, it exerts a major influence on its pupils (Raymond Aron, Simone Weil, Georges Canguilhem…).

With the approach of the war, Alain militates for pacifism. When this one is declared, without disavowing its ideas, and although nonmobilizable, it is committed satisfying its duties of citizen. Sergeant with the 3rd regiment of artillery, it refuses all the proposals for a promotion to a higher rank. May 23rd, 1916, it is crushed the foot in a ray of plow during a transport of ammunition towards Verdun. After a few weeks of hospitalization, it is affected for a few months at the meteorology service, then it is demobilized in 1917. Having seen close the atrocities of the Great War, it publishes in 1921 its famous lampoon Mars or the judged war . On the political plan, it engages at the sides of the radical movement in favor of a liberal republic strictly controlled by the people. In 1927, it signs the petition (appeared on April 15th in the review Europe) against the law on the general organization of the nation for the time of war, which repeals any intellectual independence and any freedom of thought. Its name côtoie those of Lucien Descaves, Louis Guilloux, Henry Poultry, Jules Romans, Severine… and those of the young people normaliens Raymond Aron and Jean-Paul Sartre. Until the end of the Thirties, its work will be guided by the fight for the pacifism and against the rise of Fascisms. He will be cofounder in 1934 of the Comité of vigilance of the intellectuals antifascists (CVIA). In 1936, whereas it is for a long time reached regular crises of rheumatisms which immobilize it, an brain attack finally condemns it to the wheel chair.

After its death, an Institute, an Association as well as a Museum (the Museum Alain with Mortagne-with-Pole) are born. They contribute since to make known and to diffuse its work while taking care of the republication and the publication of new texts.

Works

Eighty Chapters on the spirit and passions (1917)
Small Treaty of Harmony for the blind men (in Braille, 1918)
System of the Art schools (1920)
Mars or the war judged (1921)
Matter on esthetics (1923)
Letters with Dr. Henri Mondor (1924)
Matter on the capacities - Elements of radical doctrines (1925)
Memories concerning Jules Lagneau (1925)
Feelings, passions and signs (1926)
the citizen against the capacities (1926)
ideas and the ages (1927)
the visit with the musician (1927)
Matter on happiness (1925, edition increased in 1928)
Talks at the edge of the sea (1931)
Twenty lessons on the Art schools (1931)
Ideas (1932)
Matter oneducation (1932)
the Gods (1933)
Matter of literature (1934)
Matter of policy (1934)
Matter of economic (1935)
Stendhal (1935)
Memories of the war (1937)
Maintenance in the sculptor (1937)
Seasons of the spirit (1937)
Matter on the religion (1938)
Elements of philosophy (1940)
Vigil of the spirit (1942)
Preliminary with mythology (1943)
Spinoza (1949).

the Remarks

Alain develops starting from 1906 the literary kind which characterizes it, the " Propos". They are short articles, inspired by the topicality and the events of the life of the every day, with the concise style and the tempting formulas, which cover almost all the fields. This appreciated form of the general public however could divert some critical of a thorough study of its philosophical work.

Its intellectual guides were Plato, Descartes, Kant and Auguste Count - but he claimed himself above all Jules Lagneau, which was its first professor of philosophy, with the college of Vanves (current Michelet college). He never forgot, all his life during, that which he called “the only Great man that I ever knew”, and of which it is allowed to think that the meeting was as decisive as that of Plato with Socrate: “Among the attributes of God, it had the majesty. Its piercing eyes crossed our hearts and we felt unworthy. Admiration went initially to this character, obviously inflexible, inattentive with the flatteries, the precautions, with the intrigues, as if justice were due for him. ”

The goal of its philosophy is to learn how to reflect and think rationally by avoiding the prejudices. Humanistic Cartesian, he is a “eveillor of spirit”, impassioned freedom, which does not propose a system or a philosophical school but learns how to be wary of the done everything ideas. For him, the capacity of judgment which perception gives must be in catch direct with the reality of the world and not built starting from a theoretical system.

Alain loses the faith with the college without feeling spiritual crisis of it. Although he does not believe in God and is anticlerical, he respects the spirit of the Religion. He is even attracted by the religious phenomena which he analyzes with much relevance. In Matter on the religion and Propos on happiness one feels to show through, a little as at Auguste Count, a certain fascination for the Gospel in which he sees a beautiful poem and for the Catholicisme that he perceives, by taking some again the etymology, like a “universal agreement”.

Mars or the judged war (1921)

Alain explains there that what it felt most highly in the war, it is the Esclavage. He rises against the contempt of the officers for the troops when they “ speak to the men, as one speaks with the animals ”. He does not support the idea of this organized slaughter, of this treatment which the Man inflicts with the Man.

He revolts when he attends the development of an enormous machine intended to hold the men in obedience and explains why, soldier, he forever desired of other gallons only those of sergeant.

Quotations

the doubt is the salt of the spirit, without the point of doubt, all knowledge are rotted soon. (in Matter )

To like, it is to find its richness out of oneself. (in Elements of philosophy )

It is quite true that we must think of the happiness of others; but one does not say rather only what we can do of better for those which love us, it is still to be happy. (in Matter on happiness )

It does not have there possible happiness for anybody without the support of courage.

I often want to ask the women by what they replace the intelligence.

I lime pits those which have the intelligent air; it is a promise which one cannot hold.

the smile is the perfection of the laughter. (source required!)

the history is a great present, and not only one last. (in Adventures of the heart )

the man is bored received pleasure and prefers of good far the conquered pleasure. (in Matter on happiness )

One proves all that one wants, the true difficulty is to know what one wants to prove. (source required!)

to awake, it is to put at the research of the world (in Vigiles of the spirit)

If the Master keep silent himself, and if the children read, all is well. (in Matter on education )

the defect of what is interesting by oneself, it is that one does not have a sorrow to be interested in it, it is that one does not learn how to be interested in it by will. (in Matter on education )

All the people are sizeable, but no belief is sizeable. (in the Dispatch of Lorient , June 14th, 1900)

the body is the tomb of the gods.

If the pedagogs are not diverted towards other preys, it will arrive that the teachers will know many things, and that the schoolboys will not know anything any more the whole. (in Matter on education )

Penser is not to believe

Penser is to invent without believing

the Master of philosophy returns us to the Master of gymnastics

Penser is to say not!

the tragedy presents common misfortunes to us but remotely of sight and like objects, also the idea of fate, more or less clearly conceived is always the drama mainstay; illustrated misfortunes are rather known in advance and time erased the continuations of them, so that it is known where one goes and that one is separated from his time and oneself. (in System of the fine arts , 1920)

When it is said to me that there is no difference between the left and the right-hand side, the first thought which comes to me is that which says that to me is certainly not left

It has progress there, for no schoolboy in the world, neither in what it hears, nor in what he sees, but only in what he makes. (in Matter on education )

If the memory comforts a little, it is a load also, if it is beautiful.

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