Émile Boutroux

Émile Boutroux
Émile Boutroux, French philosopher
Born	Étienne Émile Marie Boutroux July 28, 1845 Montrouge, now in the Hauts-de-Seine
Died	November 22, 1921 Paris
Alma mater	École Normale Supérieure Heidelberg University
Era	19th-century philosophy
Region	Western Philosophy
School	French Spiritualism
Institutions	University of Nancy University of Paris
Main interests	Philosophy of religion
Notable ideas	Religion and science are compatible The contingent character of the laws of nature
Influences Maine de Biran
Influenced Maurice Blondel

Étienne Émile Marie Boutroux (French: [butʁu]; July 28, 1845 – November 22, 1921) was an eminent 19th century French philosopher of science and religion, and an historian of philosophy. He was a firm opponent of materialism in science. He was a spiritual philosopher who defended the idea that religion and science are compatible at a time when the power of science was rising inexorably. His work is overshadowed in the English-speaking world by that of the more celebrated Henri Bergson. He was elected membership of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences in 1898 and in 1912 to the Académie française.

Émile Boutroux was born at Montrouge, now in the Hauts-de-Seine département, near Paris. He attended the lycée Napoléon (now lycée Henri IV), and graduated in 1865 to the École Normale Supérieure. He then continued his education at Heidelberg University between 1869–1870 where he was taught by Hermann von Helmholtz and encountered German philosophy.

His first employment was the post of philosophy professor at the lycée in Caen. In 1874 he published his book on which he based his doctoral thesis. The Contingency of the laws of the nature was an analysis of the implications of Kantian philosophy for science.

Between 1874 and 1876 Boutroux taught at the Faculty of Letters at the University of Nancy and while there he fell in love with and married Aline Poincaré the sister of the scientist and mathematician Henri Poincaré. In 1880 his son, Pierre, was born. Pierre Boutroux was himself to become a distinguished mathematician and historian of science.