Felix Ravaissonmollien

Vocation

French philosopher and archaeologist. In 1837 he published the first volume of his famous work Essai sur la métaphysique d'Aristote, to which in 1846 he added a supplementary volume. This work not only criticizes and comments on the theories of Aristotle and the Peripatetics, but also develops from them a modern philosophical system. In 1838 he received his doctorate, his thesis entitled 'De l'habitude' (On Habit), which was to become a classic text (a metaphysical 'poem' on nature in general apprehended through an intuitive analysis of acquired habit as a particular manifestation of its essential being, much admired by Bergson and Heidegger), and became professor of philosophy at Rennes. From 1840 he was inspector-general of public libraries, and in 1860 became inspector-general in the department of higher education. He was also a member of the Academy of Moral and Political Science, and curator of the Department of Antiquities at the Louvre (from 1870). He died in Paris on 18 May 1900. Link to Wikipedia biography