Study of cultural history concerning the French Ideology

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The term "ideology" was invented by Destutt de Tracy in the epoch of French Revolution, and defined by the philosopher as a science to trace the generation of human ideas. Our study has been made for the purpose of situating concretely the activities of "ideologues " (Tracy's friends, Georges Cabanis, for example) in the large but sometimes invisible stream of history : we have clarified the obscure context in which contemporary political, medical and ethical realms were related to each other. The Stoic belief of Cabani's old age, enigmatic conversion taken as an issue of ephemeral ideology, had something to do with the political and medico-philosophical works of his middle age. In the revolutionary era, he had agreed to the implementation of guillotine penalty, by reason that according to the medical view of sensitivity--same as the Stoic logic, all the convicts might feel no pain in this machine. We treated this theme in the conference of ASPLF held at Laval University (Canada), in august, 1998.