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Robert Blanché (1898–1975)

A professor at the University of Toulouse, Robert Blanché was a specialist in philosophy of science, with a particular interest in mathematics and in logic. The author of numerous works on subjects ranging from the history of logic to the idiosyncratic rationalism of the English polymath William Whewell (1794–1866), Blanché was perhaps most well-known for his short book, L’Axiomatique. This book, which has appeared in several re-editions since its first publication in 1955, explained the principles of axiomatics, situating its origins in Euclidean geometry and charting its formalisation and increasing autonomy as a discipline in the wake of the emergence of non-Euclidean geometries in the late nineteenth century. Blanché’s contribution to the Cahiers’ tenth volume is based on the construction of a formally innovative ‘hexagonal’ model of logical opposition, previously developed in his book Structures intellectuelles (1966).

In the Cahiers pour l’Analyse

Robert Blanché, ‘Sur le système des connecteurs interpropositionnels’, CpA 10.7 [HTML] [PDF] [SYN]

Select bibliography

  • La Notion de fait psychique, essai sur les rapports du physique et du mental. Paris: PUF, 1934.
  • Le Rationalisme de Whewell. Paris: PUF, 1935.
  • Whewell: de la construction de la science. Paris: Vrin, 1938.
  • La Science physique et la réalité: réalisme, positivisme, mathématisme. Paris: PUF, 1948.
  • Les Attitudes idéalistes. Paris: PUF, 1949.
  • L’Axiomatique. Paris: PUF, 1955. Axiomatics, trans. G.B. Keene. New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1962.
  • Structures intellectuelles, essai sur l’organisation systématique des concepts. Paris: Vrin, 1966.
  • Raison et discours, défense de la logique réflexive. Paris: Vrin, 1967.
  • La Science actuelle et le rationalisme. Paris: PUF, 1967. Contemporary Science and Rationalism, trans. I.A.G. LeBek. Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1968.
  • La Méthode expérimentale et la philosophie de la physique. Paris: Editions Arman Colin, 1969.
  • La Logique et son histoire d’Aristote à Russell. Paris: Editions Armand Colin, 1970.
  • L’Épistémologie. Paris: PUF, 1972.
  • Le Raisonnement. Paris: PUF, 1973.
  • L’Induction scientifique et les lois naturelles. Paris: PUF, 1975.