Charles Magloire Bénard
Charles Magloire Bénard (12 February 1807 – 29 January 1898) was a French philosopher. Known for his work in pedagogy and translations of German philosophy, Bénard introduced aesthetics into French language and philosophical teaching.
Biography
Charles Bénard was born at Sainte-Foy, in the Seine-Maritime department. Bénard entered the École préparatoire in 1827, where he studied under Victor Cousin and Jules Michelet. He passed the agrégation in philosophy in 1831, and asked to be appointed professor of philosophy at the lycée de Besançon. Bénard counted among his students the painter Gustave Courbet.
Later in Paris, he taught at the Lycée Bonaparte, at the Lycée Charlemagne and at the École normale supérieure.
On Cousin's advice, he translated Hegel's Lectures on Aesthetics (from Hotho 's edition) between 1840 and 1852. Jules Simon regretted that he had proceeded to an abridgement. The work was awarded by the French Academy in 1852 with reservations of Abel-François Villemain.
Bénard also translated an anthology of works by Schelling and studies on ancient Greek philosophy.
He also wrote many pedagogical works on philosophy for high schools and colleges in the framework of the policy led by Cousin, Minister of Public Instruction. He published the first known book on the technique of the philosophy essay as well as reflections on pedagogical practices.
During the Second Empire, the Minister of Education Gustave Rouland consulted him within the framework of a commission on the state of philosophical teaching in France, of which Bénard became the secretary. The dissertation became the preferred exercise in the philosophy class.
His translation of Hegel's Aesthetics influenced, among others, Charles Baudelaire, Gustave Flaubert, James Joyce,[1] Marcel Duchamp and André Breton.
Works
- Thesis philosophica de Platonis Republica (1835)
- Dissertation sur la théorie des forces fondamentales dans le système de Gall et de Spurzheim (1836)
- Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Cours d'esthétique (1840–1852; analyzed and translated by Charles Bénard; first part: 1840; second part, 1843; third part, 1848; fourth volume, 1851; fifth volume, followed by a historical and critical essay on Hegel's aesthetics by the translator, 1852)
- Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling, Écrits philosophiques et morceaux propres à donner une idée générale de son système (1847)
- "Esthétique." In: Dictionnaire des sciences philosophiques, Vol. II (1845; pp. 293–306)
- Précis d'un cours de philosophie élémentaire à l'usage des collèges (1845)
- De l'étude de la mythologie (1849)
- Du Mal et de la destinée humaine (1849)
- Hegel, philosophie de l'art: essai analytique et critique (1852)
- De la philosophie dans l'éducation classique (1862)
- L'Enseignement actuel de la philosophie dans les lycées et collèges (1862)
- Nouveau manuel de philosophie (1863)
- Petit traité de la dissertation philosophique (1866)
- Questions de philosophie, modèles, esquisses et programmes de dissertation philosophique, précédés des règles de la dissertation et suivis des sujets donnés aux concours, à la licence et au baccalauréat ès-lettres (1869)
- Manuel de philosophie, suivi de réponses aux questions du programme de 1874 et d'une analyse des auteurs prescrits pour l'examen des baccalauréats ès-lettres et ès-sciences (1875)
- La Philosophie ancienne, histoire générale de ses systèmes (1885; awarded the Prix Bordin by the Académie française in 1886)
- L'Esthétique d'Aristote (1887)
- L'Esthétique contemporaine. La Mimique dans le système des beaux-arts (1889)
- Platon, sa philosophie, précédée d'un aperçu de sa vie et de ses écrits (1892)
Notes
- ↑ Aubert, Jacques (1992). The Aesthetics of James Joyce. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, p. 142.
References
- Décultot, Elisabeth (2002). "Ästhetik/Esthétique, Étapes d'une Naturalisation (1750-1840)", Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale, No. 34, pp. 7–28.
- Olivier, Alain Patrick, ed., (2005). Esthétique: Cahier de Notes Inédit de Victor Cousin. Paris: Vrin.
- Poucet, Bruno (1999). De l'Enseignement à la Philosophie, Charles Bénard, Philosophe et Pédagogue. Paris: Hatier.
