La Philosophie Roumaine

Qu’est-ce que la philosophie roumaine ?

Le syntagme « philosophie roumaine » a deux significations : 1) la philosophie des auteurs roumains ou de langue roumaine, et 2) une philosophie que exprime l’esprit du peuple roumain, qui élève la vision du monde traditionnelle des Roumains au niveau philosophique. Dans cette deuxième acception, la philosophie roumaine est premièrement a) une ethnophilosophie, comme philosophie anonyme trouvée dans les multiples formes de la culture orale populaire, et deuxièmement b) une réflexion philosophique culte qui part du matériel fourni par l’ethnophilosophie.

Ainsi, l’existence de la philosophie roumaine dans le sens 1) est indiscutable. Dans le sens 2.a) il est discutable non seulement si la philosophie roumaine existe, mais si en général l’ethnophilosophie est de la philosophie. Dans le sens 2.b) le corpus de textes existants est très restreint, et il faut dire que cette orientation ne prédomine pas parmi les philosophes roumains.

Dans cet article le syntagme « philosophie roumaine » aura le sens 1). Même dans ce sens, le problème de la spécificité de la philosophie roumaine peut se poser. Les discutions concernant se sujet on démarré autour de 1918, la date de la Grande Union Nationale, de la constitution de la Roumanie Grande. L’émergence d’une nouvelle conscience nationale due à cet événement a impliqué une problématisation du concept de roumanité, et l’on a essayé de trouver la spécificité nationale des Roumains en partant de leur culture nationale. Or, comme – sous l’influence de Hegel – une culture était considérée inachevée si elle ne s’élevait pas jusqu’au niveau de la philosophie, on a essayer de montrer qu’il y a une philosophie nationale, aussi bien qu’une littérature nationale, une historiographie nationale etc. Ainsi, en 1922 apparaît la première histoire de la philosophie roumaine, due à Marin Stefanesco. La discussion concernant l’existence ou l’inexistence de la philosophie roumaine et le rapport entre national et universel en philosophie a été depuis constamment alimentée par les diverses vagues de nationalisme qui ont affecté la Roumanie à travers l’histoire du 20eme siècle.

Cette discussion qui a durée presque’ un siècle, a abouti à deux types de conclusions. Certains philosophes disent qu’il y a des philosophes roumains, mais il n’y a pas de philosophie roumaine, d’autres affirment que les Roumains ont philosophie spécifique, tandis qu’autres peuples n’ont pas leur propre philosophie, même si ils ont des philosophes.

Aperçu historique

Le Moyen Age (14e - 17e siècles)

Dans la période médiévale, la culture roumaine écrite est surtout théologique et, jusqu’à la moitié du 17e siècle, d’expression slavonne. A partir du 10e siècle, les territoires au nord du Danube se retrouvent sous l’influence politique des Bulgares, qui ne tarderont pas a avoir aussi une influence culturelle considérable sur les Roumains. Ainsi, ils adopteront le slavon comme langue liturgique et culturelle. Les premiers textes philosophiques qui ont circulé sur dans les Pays Roumains étaient, donc, en slavon et d’un assez bas niveau.

Il s’agit notamment de traductions des textes byzantins de la période patristique, dont des traités chrétiens de logique, c’est-à-dire des compilations d’après la Eisagoge de Porphyre et les Catégories d’Aristote. Le but de ces traités était d’offrir des notions élémentaires de logique et d’ontologie, nécessaires pour les discussions des problèmes de théologie dogmatique. Ils transmettaient ainsi un aristotélisme rudimentaire, dans la tradition des commentateurs néoplatoniciens alexandrins. Les bibliothèques conservent des copies des deux tels traités: la Dialectique de St. Jean Damascène et un traité anonyme, basé sur la Proparaskeue de Théodore de Raithu.

Les quelques écrits originaux des cette période ne font que justifier la vision du monde du christianisme orthodoxe avec des arguments plutôt rhétoriques que philosophiques. Tel este le cas des Enseignements de Néagoé Basarab à son fils, Théodose (cca. 1521), en grande partie une compilation de sources bibliques et patristiques, qui s’encadre plutôt dans la théologie politique. L’auteur y justifie la théocratie byzantine, mais demande au prince de mener la vie ascétique d’un moine. Presque deux siècles plus tard, le prince Démètre Cantemir (1673 - 1723) écrit Le Divan (1698), un traité de morale dont la partie originale consiste en une dispute entre le Sage et le Monde, ou l’Ame et le Corps. Le Sage représente la morale orthodoxe, tandis que le Monde incarne le point de vue commun. Le Monde est vaincu par les arguments du Sage, et ainsi le point de vue religieux est prouvé vrai. Cantemir a laissé en manuscrit plusieurs textes philosophiques, dont le plus important est Sacrosanctae Scientiae Indepingibilis Imago (1700). Le but de cette « théologo-physique » est de défendre la cosmologie chrétienne en appelant aux théories de Jean-Baptiste Van Helmont. Un autre auteur de textes philosophiques en latin est Gabriel Ivul, un jésuite professeur de philosophie à l’Université de Vienne, qui a publié notamment Propositiones ex universa logica (1654).

Le siècle phanariote

A la fin du 17è siècle les princes régnants de Valachie et Moldavie instituent des écoles supérieures dans les capitales de leurs principautés. Elles vont être connues comme les Académies Princières (Bucarest, 1694; Iasi, 1707). La philosophie y était enseignée par des professeurs grecs, selon le système de Théophile Chorydalée, le fondateur de l’enseignement philosophique dans les Balkans après la chute du Constantinople. Chorydalée était docteur en médecine et philosophie de l’Université de Padoue, élève de Cremonini. Il était formé dans l’esprit du néoaristotélisme padouan, ce courant philosophique de la Renaissance, qui avait apparu en réaction au thomisme et à l’averroïsme. Chorydalée avait écrit des commentaires aux principaux livres d’Aristote, commentaires qui servaient de manuels dans les Académies. L’influence du chorydaléisme fut grande dans le monde orthodoxe, et il domina autoritairement pendant plus de trois quarts du 18e siècle. Ainsi, en 1787, un Jean Zanetti (Ioannis Tzannetou), boyard valaque d’origine grecque, publiait en grec et français une Réfutation du traité d’Ocellus de la nature de l’univers, ou il combattait, à la manière des péripatéticiens, la thèse de l’éternité du monde soutenue par un philosophe antique.

A partir des années 1760, quelques érudits introduisent dans les Académies l’étude des mathématiques, des sciences naturelles et de la philosophie moderne. On peut mentionner Nikephoros Theotokis, Nicholas Zerzoulis et Joseph Moisiodax. Moisiodax (1725 - 1800) publie en 1780 l’essai L’Apologie, où il explique sa conception d’une « philosophie saine ». Celle-ci n’est que la philosophie naturelle occidentale, de Descartes, Newton, Wolff. D’ailleurs, Wolff a eu une grande influence dans le Pays Roumains, où il a été introduit par les professeurs grecs, mais aussi par les traductions en roumain du transylvanien Samuel Micu (1745 - 1806). D’autre philosophes que circulaient en traduction grecque étaient Johann Einecke (Heineccius), Antonio Genovesi, Francesco Soave, Lodovico Muratori, Condillac. On appréciait aussi Locke et les « philosophes » français, Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu. Le sensualisme français était particulièrement bien reçu dans les Pays Roumains au début du 19e siècle. En 1818 Constantin Vardalachos enseignait à Bucarest avec un grand succès l’idéologie de Destutt de Tracy, et Laszlo Erdély enseignait en parallèle la philosophie de Condillac.

Le 19e siècle

Courants et orientations dans les écoles

A partir de 1821 l’enseignement supérieur en grec a été remplacé par un enseignement du même niveau en roumain, avec des professeurs roumains formés aux universités occidentales. Ils ont laissé très peux de textes originaux, leur principal souci étant d’offrir au public des traductions de livres de philosophie, surtout des manuels. Gheorghe Lazar (1779 - 1821) et August Treboniu Laurian (1810 - 1881) à Bucarest, Timotei Cipariu (1805 - 1887) à Blaj et Simeon Barnutiu (1808 - 1864) à Iasi ont traduit et utilisé les manuels de Wilhelm Traugott Krug, un philosophe influencé par Kant, mais qui proposait une philosophie propre, le « synthétisme transcendantal ». Ion Zalomit (1820 - 1885), docteur à Berlin avec une thèse sur Kant, diffusa tout de même à Bucarest dans un premier temps l’éclectisme de Cousin. Eftimie Murgu (1805 - 1870) et Petre Campeanu-Maler (1809 - 1893) ont fait connaître à Iasi le « synthétisme critique-rationnel », la philosophie de Imre János, leur professeur à l’Université de Peste. C’était une philosophie éclectique, qui essayait d’éviter la critique kantienne de la métaphysique en affirmant que les jugements métaphysiques sont analytiques a priori.

Les représentants des Lumières
Eufrosin Poteca (1786 - 1858), traducteur et professeur à l’Académie de Saint Sava, fut aussi un penseur indépendant, quoique anachronique. Sa conception métaphysique, assez éclectique, était influencée par le sensualisme de Soave et de de Tracy et par la théologie chrétienne. La métaphysique est « la science des principes, selon qualité et quantité », et il y a trois principes: corps, âme et esprit. Chacun d’eux est étudié par une branche des sciences: les corps par la physique, l’âme par la psychologie et l’esprit par l’idéologie. Au lieu de dire corps, âme, esprit on pourrait dire matière, vie et idée. Ce sont les trois éléments omniprésents à travers l’univers. Poteca mettait à la base de tous les droits la règle d’or, qui était pour lui à la foi prescription divine et expression des lois de la nature. A partir d’ici, il argumenta publiquement contre l’esclavage, attitude pour laquelle il se fit congédier de son poste de professeur et renvoyer à un monastère d’Oltenie pour le reste de sa vie.

Jean Tăutul (1795 - 1830), surnommé « Jean le Philosophe », un boyard bon connaisseur de la philosophie des lumières, fut un philosophe intéressant. Tăutul a écrit un Essai à l’encontre des déistes et matérialistes, ou il montrait que l’homme ne peut pas être compris en partant de l’ordre de la nature, ce qui prouve qu’il est un être « amphibien », participant à un ordre surnaturel. Il nous a laissé aussi une Construction de la politique conformément aux lois de la nature, ainsi que d‘autres écrits. Il fut en même temps un des auteurs de la « constitution des carbonari », inspiré du mouvement italien homonyme. On voit de ses écrits qu’il souhaitait, selon le modèle de Locke ou de Rousseau, bâtir une théorie politique à partir d’une anthropologie de l’état de nature. Mais cette anthropologie était celle du christianisme orthodoxe, et sur elle on devait fonder une « république aristo-démocratique ».

Le bessarabien Alexandru Hâjdău (1811 - 1872), auditeur de Schelling à Berlin, a élaboré une philosophie qu’il a caractérisée lui-même comme du Skovoroda pensé avec les outils de l’idéalisme allemand. Il était un slavophile, un messianique et un supporteur de l’autocratie de Nicholas 1er. Sa philosophie de l’histoire identifiait 3 moments de l’existence russe: l’existence en soi (ou pré-pétrovienne), l’existence en dehors du soi (la période pétrovienne) et l’existence en et pour soi, celle de l’époque de Nicholas 1er. Pour que ce dernier moment soit accompli, il y avait besoin d’une philosophie nationale, entendue comme réflexion sur l’homme russe, émergeante de la langue russe, libre de toute immixtion occidentale. Cette philosophie pouvait être obtenue seulement dans le prolongement de la philosophie de Skovoroda, authentique exposant du génie russe.

Un autre penseur original est Jean Héliade Rădulescu (1802 - 1872), poète, éditeur, révolutionnaire, professeur. Il avait étudié à l’Académie Princière de Bucarest, passant en 1818 à l’école roumaine de Lazăr. De sa Grammaire roumaine (1828) on voit que la première philosophie qui l’a influencé était le sensualisme de Condillac. Après la révolution de 1848, suite à son séjour d’une décennie à Paris, Héliade arrive à une autre vision philosophique, influencé par la kabbale et par le socialisme de Proudhon et Fourier. Dans son ouvrages les plus important, L’équilibre entre antithèses ou l’esprit et la matière (1859-1869), Héliade considère que les monismes et les dualismes sont des positions philosophiques incomplètes, le trinitarisme étant le seul point de vue complet. Tous les concepts philosophiques font partie des dualités, dont les unes sont « sympathiques », tandis que les autre sont « antipathiques ». Les dualités sympathiques contiennent deux termes positifs, par exemple: matière - esprit, tandis qu’une dualité antipathique contient un terme positif et un autre négatif, ou privatif: bien - mal. Une telle dualité ne peut pas être dépassé, elle est destructive, stérile. Au contraire, une dualité sympathique conduit toujours à un troisième terme, par lequel la dualité est dépassée et passe dans une trinité. Héliade applique sa théorie des dualités aux sujets politiques et sociaux, dans le but de justifier éventuellement sa propre position politique, le « conservatisme progressiste », qui n’était agréée ni par les libéraux, ni par les conservateurs. Le philosophe montre que la dualité conservation - progrès est sympathique, et que le troisième terme qui en résulte est la « perfectibilité ». Le conservatisme pur et le libéralisme pur ne peuvent pas durer, étant instables et non perfectibles. Ainsi, pour progresser il faut conserver, mais on ne peut rien conserver si il n’y a pas de progrès.

Siméon Bărnuțiu, qui avait enseigné la philosophie au Collège roumain de Blaj, passe en Moldavie où il dévient professeur de philosophie à l’Académie Michelienne, puis à l’Université de Iași (1860-1864). Il a eu une influence considérable dans son pays d’adoption, où on a pu parler d’une « école de Bărnuțiu». Ses publications (la majorité posthumes) sont des traductions d’après Krug, Beck, Rotteck et Niemeyers. La théorie du droit naturel de Krug a beaucoup influencé Bărnuțiu, et il est probable qu’il l’a connu d’abord via l’école hongroise de la « philosophie de l’harmonie », représentée en Transylvanie par Samuel Köteles, Janos Heteny et Gusztav Szontagh. Plus tard il connaitra le droit romain, à travers les ouvrages de Savigny. Ces deux influences convergent dans l’ouvrage le plus important de Bărnuțiu, Le droit publique des Roumains (1867), considéré un ouvrage de philosophie juridico-politique. Le philosophe y rapproche le droit romain du droit naturel, soutient que le droit roumain ne peut être que le droit romain, qui impose comme conséquence politique la démocratie républicaine.

Les influences de la philosophie classique allemande

A partir des années 1860 le paysage intellectuel roumain change très vite. La philosophie des lumières perds ses adhérents, les gens étant plus réceptifs aux nouveaux courants de la philosophie européenne. La conversion des anciennes Académies en Universités (1860 Iași, 1864 Bucarest) et la fondation de la société littéraire Junimea sont des événements qui marquent une nouvelle vague d’occidentalisation de la société roumaine.

Le fondateur de la société Junimea était Titu Maiorescu (1840 – 1917), docteur en philosophie de l’Université de Giessen avec une thèse sur la relation comme fondement de la philosophie (Das Verhaltniss, 1858). Il publie en allemand un livre de philosophie plutôt bien reçu, Einiges Philosophische in gemeinfasslicher Form (1861), influencé par Herbart et Feuerbach. En roumain il publie une Logique (1870), toujours sous l’influence de Herbart. Il devient ainsi l’autorité numéro 1 dans la philosophie roumaine, et un personnage très influent dans la vie intellectuelle de l’époque. Maiorescu s’est opposé violemment aux théories de Bărnuțiu, dans un article polémique intitulé « A l’encontre de l’école de Bărnuțiu » (1868) et qui a largement discrédité la philosophie de son antécesseur.

A Junimea la philosophie n’occupait pas le prime-plan, mais elle demeurait une préoccupation constante de quelques sociétaires. Maiorescu fit connaître aux junimistes les philosophies de Kant et Schopenhauer, et surtout la dernière a connu un grand succès. Comme les boyards moldaves étaient plutôt francophones, Maiorescu a demandé à J. A. Cantacuzène (1829 - 1897) de traduire en français quelques ouvrages de Schopenhauer, dont Le monde comme volonté et comme représentation est parue en 1877. Lui-même a traduit en roumain quelques autre ouvrages du philosophe allemand. Maiorescu a envoyé aux études plusieurs jeunes, et a offert son appuy aux autres, qui vont devenir ensuite les représentants les plus importants de la philosophie de la première partie du 20e siècle.

Mihai Eminescu (1850 - 1889), le poète national, qui avait des études de philosophie à Vienna et Berlin, appréciait aussi Kant et Schopenhauer, ainsi que les philosophies de l’Inde, notamment le Brahmanisme et le Bouddhisme. Il a réalisé la première traduction en roumain de la Critique de la raison pure (traduction partielle et non publiée). Malgré les insistances de Maiorescu, qui voulait que le poète passe son doctorat pour pouvoir occuper un poste de professeur à l’Université de Jassy, Eminescu préfère une carrière de journaliste. Dans ses articles de journal il exprime une philosophie politique conservatrice, alignée à celle de Maiorescu.

Les scientistes

Plusieurs membres de Junimea qui se sont illustrés en philosophie à la fin du 19e siècle ne partageaient pas les préférences philosophiques de Maiorescu. Ils n’étaient pas réceptifs à la philosophie classique allemande, mais préféraient plutôt la philosophie positive, le scientisme et le matérialisme. Ces philosophes sont Basile Conta (1846 – 1882), Alexandru Xenopol (1847 – 1920), Constantin Leonardescu (1844 – 1907), Ioan Pop-Florantin (1843 – 1926).

Basile Conta a fait des études commerciales à Anvers, avant d’obtenir le doctorat en droit à l’Université de Bruxelles. Il préparait aussi une thèse en philosophie, mais dû au manque de ressources financières doublé d’une condition médicale précaire il n’a pas réussi à la défendre. Rentré en Roumanie, il fut professeur de droit à l’Université de Jassy. Cependant, il a publié des nombreuses ouvrages de philosophie, qui lui ont apporté une notoriété internationale. Aujourd’hui il est considéré comme un des plus importants représentants du matérialisme évolutionniste, à côté de Büchner, Vogt et Moleschott. Conta n’a pas été influencé seulement par les matérialistes allemands, mais aussi par le positivisme de Compte et par le transformisme (surtout à travers l’œuvre de Herbert Spencer).

La théorie du fatalisme est un ouvrage consacré surtout au problème du rapport corps-esprit. Conta se détache de la vision de Moleschott, selon lequel la pensée était une sécrétion du cerveau, et considère qu’elle est une fonction du cerveau, ainsi non localisable. Il offre une théorie des actes cognitifs, basée sur quelques hypothèses empiriques infirmées depuis. Il considérait que chaque type de sensation est transmis au cerveau par des fibres nerveuses spécifiques. Les sensations résultent de l’impacte des stimuli externes sur les organes sensoriels et sont transmises au cerveau par la vibration des fibres nerveuses. Une fois arrivée au cerveau, la sensation le modifie, en lui provoquant une modification matérielle. Ainsi, tous les états mentaux sont les conséquences causales des événements externes, soumis aux mêmes lois « fatales » que ceux-ci.

La théorie de l’ondulation universelle propose une métaphysique matérialiste dans le prolongement des conclusions de la théorie du fatalisme. La loi fondamentale de l’univers est précisément la loi de l’évolution « onduliforme » . Chaque chose a sa propre « ondulation » (i.e. une évolution caractérisée par ascension, apogée et déclin) et l’Univers lui-même a une ondulation qui résulte de l’addition de toutes les ondulations particulières. Conta s’occupe aussi du problème de l’évolution des espèces, contredisant Darwin et adoptant une position transformiste. Selon lui, la sélection naturelle ne peut expliquer que la disparition de certaines espèces biologiques, mais pas l’apparition des nouvelles espèces. Le facteur décisif dans l’évolution est donc l’adaptation à l’environnement.

Conta a écrit plusieurs ouvrages sur la métaphysique, ne se ralliant pas à la position antimétaphysique des positivistes. Il a argumenté en faveur de la présence d’un élément artistique dans la construction des systèmes métaphysiques. Il était aussi un matérialiste atypique, acceptant la possibilité que ce qu’il désignait par le nom « matière » soit la même chose que ce que les spiritualistes appelaient « esprit ».

Alexandru Xenopol a étudié en Allemagne, étant docteur en histoire et en philosophie. Il a été, comme Conta, professeur à l’Université de Jassy. Remarquable et remarqué comme historien, Xenopol fut aussi un philosophe de l’histoire très connu, un des principaux protagonistes dans cette discipline à la fin du 19e siècle. Ses contributions sont exposés en principal dans Principes fondamentaux de l’histoire (1899), réédité en 1908 sous le titre La théorie de l'histoire. Des principes fondamentaux de l'histoire.

Xenopol est préoccupé des fondements de sa discipline, qu’il essaie de justifier en tant que science. Il part d’une distinction entre faits de répétition et faits de succession. Les faits de répétition sont soumises aux lois, tandis que les faits de succession forment des séries. Ainsi, il y a une division correspondante des sciences, selon les catégories des faits qu’elles étudient. Les sciences qui étudient les faits de répétition sont des sciences « théoriques », tandis que les faits de succession sont étudiés par les sciences « historiques ». L’histoire proprement-dite (avec toutes ses branches ) est une science historique de l’esprit, par opposition aux sciences historiques de la matière (e. g. la géologie). Tandis que les faits de répétition sont subsumés aux lois, les faits de succession sont intégrés par des séries, qui représentent ainsi les entités générales dans l’histoire.

Du point de vue de sa philosophie générale, Xenopol est un anti-kantien et un matérialiste (influencé, lui aussi, par le positivisme de Compte). Selon Xenopol, l’apriorisme kantien réduit l’histoire à un simple conte, puisqu’il nie l’existence objective de l’espace et du temps. Pour que l’histoire puisse être possible il faut que l’espace et le temps aient une existence matérielle, indépendante de l’esprit humain. Xenopol adopte aussi une perspective métaphysique évolutionniste; il situe l’évolution historique de l’humanité dans le prolongement de l’évolution de l’univers inanimé, puis animé. C’est un seul et même processus évolutive qui culmine dans l’histoire de l’humanité.

Xenopol a été en dialogue avec des grands philosophes européens, tel Rickert, auquel le philosophe roumain s’est opposé. Néanmoins, l’allemand allait le considérer comme un de ses précurseurs, fait qui a contribué à la solide réputation internationale dont Xenopol jouissait avant la première guerre mondiale.

Leonardescu et Pop-Florantin sont des philosophes d’une moindre importance .

Le premier, après une licence ès lettres à Paris, a été professeur de philosophie à l’Université de Iasi et a publié des nombreuses ouvrages presque manquant d’originalité et d’un scientisme prononcé. Tels sont La philosophie face au progrès des sciences positives (1877), La morale inductive ou la science du comportement humain (1885) ou ses Principes de psychologie: essai de donner une forme systématique aux nouveaux recherches et expériences psychologiques (1892). Leonardescu a écrit aussi un traité d’esthétique, Principes de la philosophie de la littérature et de l’art (1898), où il apporte peut-être ses contributions les plus personnelles. Le philosophe y essaie de fonder l’esthétique sur les donnés positives offerts par la biologie, la psychologie et la sociologie.

Ion Pop-Florantin, docteur à Vienna, a été professeur de lycée à Iasi, donnant aussi occasionnellement des cours à l’université. Il a publié des manuels de philosophie, mai aussi des ouvrages d’un niveau plus élevé, encadrés dans le même courant scientiste d’inspiration positiviste que les ouvrages de Leonardescu. On peut citer La reforme des méthodes en science et la théorie et la pratique du consécutionnisme universel (1895) ou bien L’esthétique: science philosophique du beau et des arts (1887). Le « consécutionnisme » de Pop-Florantin est une philosophie qui veut arriver à l’essence des choses par l’examen direct, positif, de leur consécution dans la série des phénomènes. Au nom de ce culte de la causalité le philosophe allait appeler Einstein « au tribunal de la logique » vers la fin de sa vie.

Autres orientations

Outre ces philosophes plus ou moins réputés et impliques dans l’enseignement philosophique, on peut mentionner un autre moldave, le Prince Grigori Sturdza (1821 - 1901). Il a publié, entre autres choses, Les lois fondamentales de l’univers (1891), ouvrage où l’on propose un matérialisme mécaniste désuet. Le prince y conteste la loi de l'attraction universelle, le parallelogramme des forces et bâtit une cosmologie en utilisant seulement la géométrie éuclidienne et la mécanique élémentaire. Il propose une conception matérialiste de l'âme, qui serait un gas éthérique inèrte. Le livre se fit remarquer à l’époque, générant même des exégèses, mais restant en dehors du circuit académique de la philosophie.

Un spiritualiste qui a écrit en français est N. Constantinesco, auteur de L'apogée des choses (1877). L'auteur y propose un "système trinitaire", dont le principe peut être résumé dans l'équation existence = intelligence + raison, valable pour toute chose. Constantinesco nie l'existence de l'âme, mais soutient l'immortalité personnelle, tout en combattant la métempsychose. Son problème principale est l'explication des "facultés de l'âme" qui sont bien réelles même si l'âme n'existe pas.

En Transylvanie aussi il y a eu d’auteurs de textes philosophiques, dont le plus important est Vasile Lucaciu (1852 - 1922). Docteur en philosophie à Rome, à l‘Institut St. Athanase, de confession gréco-catholique, Lucaciu nous a laissé un système de philosophie thomiste, une exposition standard de la philosophie officielle de l’Eglise Catholique. Le système fut publie sous le titre Institutions de philosophie en trois toms: Logique (1881), Métaphysique (1883) et Philosophie Morale (1884).

(à suivre)

Romanian Philosophy. An Extremely Short Overview

[in progress ]

“Romanian philosophy” is a name covering either a) the philosophy done in Romania or by Romanians, or b) an ethnic philosophy, which expresses at a high level the fundamental traits of the Romanian spirituality, or which elevates to a philosophical level the Weltanschauung of the Romanian people, as deposited in language and folklore.

The Specificity of the Romanian Philosophy

The discussion concerning the existence of a Romanian philosophy knew three stages.

Between the two World Wars, after the emergence of the Greater Romania, the national identity went through a crisis. The new national identity that was forged by the intellectuals of the time was not centred on political goals like before (national rights, independence, national unity etc.), but took initially a more cultural character. Thus the discussions concerning the “national specificity” invaded historiography, literature and philosophy. The first history of the Romanian philosophy is published in 1922 by Marin Stefanescu[1], proving thus the fact that the philosophical thinking in Romania had reached the level of self-reflexivity; that, in other words, had acquired self-conscience. The general conclusion of the interbellic discussions[2] which involved almost every notable philosopher was that there is a Romanian philosophy proper, with a distinct profile among other national philosophies. Constantin Noica, one of the most prominent Romanian philosophers of all times, considered back then that the Romanian philosophy is characterised by paganism, cosmicism (i.e. no acute separation of the world of the man from the transcendence) and determinism (or rather fatalism)[3].

During communism, the existence of a Romanian philosophy was an uncontested dogma. The official histories of the philosophy, influenced by the national-communist and protochronistic ideology, spoke even of the “philosophy of the Geto-Dacians”[4]. They were affirming a continuity of philosophical vision from Dacians, via folklore, to contemporary authors. Needless to say, the “materialistic” character of the Romanian philosophy was over exaggerated. Some non-Marxist authors, like Noica, insisted also on the singleness of the Romanian philosophical thinking. Noica even wrote a book called The Romanian Feeling of the Being.

After the communism, the discussion resurfaced. One opinion is that there are Romanian philosophers, but there is no Romanian philosophy. In other words, that the phrase “Romanian philosophy” has a mere historical-geographical content. The opposite point of view consists in two theses: 1) not all the European nations have their own national philosophy; 2) the Romanian nation has its own, distinctive, national philosophy, which continues at a higher level the traditional world-view[5]. The article from the Routledge Encyclopaedia of Philosophy concerning the philosophy in Romania seems rather to adopt a weeker version of the second position. The existence of a Romanian philosophy is recognized, but is not connected to the national ethos, or to the ethnical substance of the Romanians. Thus, the authors say: “At the peak of its evolution between the two world wars, Romanian philosophy had the following characteristic features: it was closely related to literature, in the sense that most Romanian philosophers were also important writers; it showed excessive preoccupation with the issue of Romanian identity; it was involved in Romania's historical, political and ideological debates, fuelling attitudes in favour of or against Westernization and modernization; it synchronized quickly with Western philosophical thinking; and it was (and still is) lacking in ethical thought.”[6]

Historical outline

Beginnings

The first broadly philosophical texts attested on the Romanian territory are the Patristic writings. Among this corpus of texts, in Church-Slavonic translations, the most important are the works of Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite and the Dialectics of St. John Damascene[7]. Excerpts from ancient philosophers circulated also. The only notable indigenous production of the epoch is The Teachings of Neagoe Basarab to his Son, Theodosius[8], written around 1521. The book is a compilation of patristic and biblical sources, with many moral and political reflections, on an ascetical background. It illustrates Byzantine theocracy and proposes the model of a prince-monk.

17^th Century

At the middle of the 17^th century the Romanian becomes liturgical language, and thus cultural language. Among the few philosophical productions of the period, the most influential is The Divan[9] (1698) of Dimitrie Cantemir (1673 – 1723), a philosophical treatise which supports the Orthodox ethics with rational arguments. Cantemir authored also a textbook of logic[10] and a treatise of “theologo-physics”, Sacrosanctae scientiae indepingibilis imago[11] (1700) which, besides discussing the nature of time, or the problem of the universals, tries to justify the biblical cosmogony with rational arguments drawing on the philosophy of Johannes Baptista Van Helmont.

18^th Century

In the 18^th century the dominant philosophy in Moldavia and Walachia is the neo-Aristotelianism of Theophilos Chorydaleos[12], which was in fact the Paduan neo-Aristotelianism of Zabarella, Pomponazzi and Cremonini[13]. Towards the last quarter of the century the modern philosophy arrives in Romania, under the form of Wolffian rationalism and Lockean empiricism[14]. Important figures may be considered Samuel Micu (1745 – 1806) in Transylvania, and Iosif Moisiodax (1730 – 1800) in Moldavia. The first translated intensively from the Wolffian Baumeister[15], thus promoting the German enlightenment. The last contributed decisively at the modernization of the philosophical curriculum in the Princely Academies. He wrote an essay called The Apology[16], a splendid plea for the modern European philosophy as against the old Aristotelian Chorydaleian scholasticism. The philosophical language of this century was mostly Greek.

19^th Century

In the 19^th century the Greek language is replaced in the Academies with the Romanian. Although their existed still supporters of Wolff and Condillac (Locke being now eclipsed by his French continuator), like Eufrosin Poteca[17] (1786 – 1859), the Kantianism will impose itself quickly. The list of Romanian Kantians, mostly Transylvanians formed at the Greek-Catholic Gymnasium in Blaj, may begin with Daniil Philippidis, and continue with Gheorghe Lazar (1779 – 1823), August Treboniu-Laurian (1810 – 1881), Simeon Barnutiu (1808 – 1864), Timotei Cipariu (1805 – 1887) and Ioan Zalomit (1810 – 1885). They left little original work, their chief concern being to put in the hands of the youth philosophical textbooks in Romanian. Thus, the works of Krugg, Kant’s successor at Konigsberg, were translated four times, independently. Zalomit published in French, in 1848, an inaugural dissertation called The Principles and Merits of Kant’s Philosophy.

At the middle of the century the most important philosopher is Ioan Heliade – Radulescu (1802 – 1872). He was influenced by Cousin’s eclecticism, by Hegel (indirectly, via Victor Cousin), and by the socialist Proudhomme. His metaphysics and political philosophy are contained in Equilibrium between Antitheses and The Critical Universal History[18].

Beginning with 1864, the pole of the Romanian philosophical life becomes the “Junimea” literary society. Titu Maiorescu (1840 – 1917), its founder, studied philosophy in Germany, where he even published a work, Einiges philosophische in gemeinfasslicher Form (1860). In Romanian he published a treatise on Logic (1876)[19]. He was under the influence of Kant, Herbart and Feuerbach, and he promoted also Schopenhauer in Romania. Maiorescu, by his teaching rather then by his published work, became the founder of the first Romanian philosophical „school”. Other important philosophers at Junimea are Vasile Conta (1845 – 1882) and Alexandru Xenopol (1847 – 1920). The first wrote a philosophical system influenced by Spencer’s transformism, Compte’s positivism, and Buchner’s vulgar materialism. His reflections on the nature of cognition are now obsolete, depending on infirmed physiological hypothesis. He was also a defender of metaphysics, in a deeply anti-metaphysical climate[20]. Xenopol developed a philosophy of history, trying to clarify the scientific status of his speciality, history. He proposed a distinction between facts of repetition and facts of succession, laying thus the basis for a classification of sciences, of which Rickert said that it had anticipated his own. His reflections on causality, hypothesis and their verification are still worthy of interest[21].

20th Century

In the 20th century, the history of Romanian philosophy is divided in three periods: the pre-communist period, the communist period, and the post-communist period.

a) Pre-communist Period

Two major „schools” of philosophy will give in the first half of the century the peaks of the Romanian philosophy: the school of Maiorescu, and the school of Nae Ionescu. The Transylvanian philosophers can also be grouped together, mostly by reason of their non affiliation to the two other schools, but also on the reason of their belonging to the same spiritual family. Apart this three „schools” or orientations, there are many other authors, cultivating with predilection the philosophical essay.

The Maiorescians

The „Maiorescians” are Constantin Radulescu – Motru (1868 – 1957), P. P. Negulescu (1872 – 1951), Ion Petrovici (1882 – 1972), and Mircea Florian (1888 – 1960). Constantin Radulescu – Motru, the grandson of Eufrosin Poteca, called his philosophical system „Energetic Personalism”. An expert in experimental psychology, he followed the inductivist trend in metaphysics. The human personality was considered by him a superior form of energy. His metaphysics implies a political program as well as an ethics of labour. The purpose of the political life must be the transition from the “anarchic personalism” that governed the Romanian society to the “energetic personalism”. P. P. Negulescu published a Philosophy of the Renaissance still readable and a capital study in the philosophy of the culture, called The Genesis of the Forms of the Culture. Ioan Petrovici wrote on logic and metaphysics. In logic he had contributions in the theory of the notions, chiefly concerning the rapport between the intension and the extension of a term. He contradicted the law of their inverse dependence. In metaphysics perhaps the most well known of his contributions is the article “The Idea of Nothingness”. Mircea Florian elaborated between the wars a philosophy of the “pure datum”, trying to overcome the epistemology based on the subject-object dichotomy. His results are published in the volume Philosophical Reconstruction (1943).

The Ionescians

The “Ionescians” grouped around their teacher and/or friend, Nae Ionescu (1890 – 1940). He earned his PhD in Germany, with a study on the “logistic”, i.e., in the terminology of the epoch, the mathematical logic. He did not welcome mathematical logic, thinking that the classical logic is superior. His thinking on the subject may be regarded as a form of intuitionism. He published subsequently only press articles, where he exposed strong conservative views, and he became quickly the mentor of the extreme right. After his death, some of his students published his lectures. He taught a philosophy of the authenticity, called “Trairism” (from “a trai”=”to live”), an autochthon version of Existentialism. Although he plagiarised many times, his charisma was apparently enormous, his students being completely captivated by the fact that he philosophised on the spot, in the course room, giving them answers to their problems, and provoking in them a certain tension of the spirit, an impetus toward thinking on their own.

The most important of his adherents were Mircea Vulcanescu (1904 – 1952), Mircea Eliade (1907 – 1986), Emil Cioran (1911 – 1995), Constantin Noica (1909 – 1987).

Vulcanescu had an enormous erudition, being considered by many the chief of the “generation”, but did not publish significantly in the domain of philosophy. He did, however, influenced the Romanian philosophy by his seminal essay The Romanian Dimension of the Existence. In this work he analyses the conceptual paradigm that serves as a means of evaluation of diverse philosophical visions by the Romanians. By analysing certain Romanian phrases, in what he calls a phenomenological manner, he pretends to unravel the world vision they deposit. From an analysis of the linguistic particularities of the negation in Romanian, e.g., he deduces the whole Romanian ethos, with traits like fatalism or indifference in front of death, the easiness in front of life, the feeling that there is no alternative and nothing irremediable.

Mircea Eliade, the well-known specialist in the history of religions, published some essays showing the influence of his teacher, but through these early works he brought nothing essentially new in the landscape of the Romanian philosophy. He was, however, a very important personage in the intellectual landscape of the 30’s, another possible “chief” of the generation.

Emil Cioran, in his Romanian books, had a philosophy which expresses the despair, the obsession with the death, as well as a deep lyricism. He treated nihilist themes of Nietzschean and Schopeanhaurean provenance.

Constantin Noica debuted with an essay called Mathesis, or the Simple Joys. The short book glosses on the distinction between life and geometry. After this essay Noica will orientate himself towards the history of philosophy, writing on Kant, Leibniz, Descartes, Plato, Aristotle, Hume etc. His PhD thesis was called A Sketch for the History of How Something New Is Possible, where he tried to answer how it is possible that the spirit is not “endlessly tautologous”, analysing the European philosophy from Plato to Hume.

The Transylvanians

Transylvania produced between the Wars three remarkable thinkers: Lucian Blaga (1865 – 1981), D. D. Rosca, and Eugeniu Sperantia.

Lucian Blaga’s philosophical system, called “ekstatic intellectualism” is a highly original construction, with roots in the philosophy of Kant, psychoanalysis, and Patristic philosophy. The system was projected in five “trilogies”, but we only have three achieved and a fourth partially elaborated. The trilogies are, in order: The Trilogy of Knowledge, The Trilogy of Culture, The Trilogy of Values, and The Cosmological Trilogy.

The metaphysical vision of Blaga centres around a metaphysical source or principle called “The Great Anonymous”, which creates the Universe indirectly, by mutilating the forms of existence that emanate from him, in order to avoid the possibility of the apparition of a competitor Great Anonymous. The results of these acts of mutilation are infinitesimal fragments, structured in types, and called “divine differentials”. The extant beings appear by the aggregation of these differentials. The speculative cosmology of Blaga includes also an entelechial interpretation of the evolutionist biology.

His theory of knowledge asserts the existence of an “unconscious spirit” endowed with his own set of categories which double the Kantian categories of the conscious spirit. These categories of the unconscious stop the man from revealing completely the mystery of the existence, since all his knowledge must fit into this categorial framework. Thus, the Great Anonymous keeps the “centralism of the existence”, because a complete knowledge would make the man godlike. The metaphysical axiology of Blaga is connected with this principle. These categories, which function as limits of the revealing human powers, are converted by the unconscious spirit in final values. In other words, what we can not overcome, we idolise. This “finalist self-deluding” ensures the creative destiny of mankind.

The culture is for Blaga the result of man’s trying to reveal the mysteries of existence, it constitutes the man’s being. Since man can not reveal completely the mysteries, because of the “transcendent censure” exerted by the unconscious categorial scheme, all his productions bear the mark of this framework. The totality of these categories is called a “stylistic matrix”, and they have the structure of a “cosmoid”, that is of a small universe, self-sufficient. Thus, each culture is characterised by a style, in which different categories activate and wear off successively, until the complete exhaustion of the stylistic matrix. At that moment, the culture generated by the attempts of revelation within the respective stylistic matrix, dies. This vision is at the same time close and far from the morphological theory of culture, as exposed by a Frobenius or a Spengler.

D. D. Rosca, who will later be the coordinator and translator of the series of complete works of Hegel into Romanian, arrived at a philosophical synthesis presented in his book The Tragic Existence. It is a personal blend of Existentialism, with roots in Kierkegaard, but influenced also by Hegel. His PhD thesis at the Sorbonne, The Influence of Hegel on Taine, as well as his translation in French of the Life of Jesus made him a known name in the French-speaking world.

Eugeniu Sperantia was a very prolific author. He began his list of publications with his PhD thesis, The Pragmatic Apriorism, a study on the formation of concepts. He wrote subsequently on various subjects, like the biology from a Hegelian perspective, gaining a reputation especially in the field of the philosophy of right. He was a pioneer in the field of erotetic logic (the logic of interrogatives), which he called “problematology”. A very interesting and most neglected work is his System of Metaphysics: Implicit in the Postulates of Any Possible Knowledge. We have here a theoretical innovation in metaphysics: Sperantia replaces the categorial theories of classical metaphysics with the analysis of the most general questions, analysis rendered possible by his problematology. Thus, the framework-theory of metaphysics becomes the logic of the interrogatives. Recently, his conception of metaphysics was compared to that of Collingwood.

Other Philosophers

From the multitude of philosophical authors unaffiliated with the previous three currents we can mention here (almost randomly) Vasile Bancila (1897 – 1979), Ionel Gherea, Anton Dumitriu (1905 – 1992) and Stefan Lupasco (1900 – 1988).

Vasile Bancila wrote two important commentaries on Blaga and Radulescu-Motru, and gave a valuable reply to Blaga’s Mioritical Space, called The Space of Baragan. Blaga’s book maintained that the unconscious category of space which operates in the Romanian stylistic matrix was “the space indefinitely wave-like”, an alternation on ups and downs, as a sinusoid. The name “mioritical” comes from “miorita”, diminutive of sheep, title of a popular ballad relevant for the Romanian mentality. Bancila showed that the Romanian culture does not reflect only one single abyssal category of space, that of Blaga, and he tried to advocate the existence of a “Baragan space” (Baragan is the name of the greatest plain in Romania); a space not determined by the mountain relief, but by the flat plain relief.

Ionel Gherea, son of the noted Marxist sociologist Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea, published a book called The I and the World: Essay in Anthropomorphic Cosmogony. This much too neglected work contains a still interesting discussion of the concept of personal identity. The author does an unusual amount of conceptual analysis, although in extremely general lines he is a phenomenologist of Husserlian orientation.

Anton Dumitriu, mathematician by initial formation, obtains a PhD in philosophy and becomes the assistant of P. P. Negulescu. He was among the first philosophers in Romanian interested in the philosophy of science, subject he treated in The Philosophical bases of Science. He introduces in Romania the mathematical logic, mostly by his works The New Logic and The Polyvalent Logic, where he presents the Russell-Whitehead axiomatic system of Principia Mathematica, and C. Lewis’ system of strict implication. Also, he researched intensively the problem of logical - semantic paradoxes, having the conviction that the solution to them was already available in the works of the Scholastic philosophers.

Stefan Lupasco, renowned francophone philosopher of science, tried to lay basis of a new epistemology, consonant with the then newly developed quantum mechanics. He advocated a logic of the included third, which conducted him to sustain the existence of third state, beyond matter and energy.

b) Communist Period

Within the first decade of totalitarianism, the philosophical life consisted in the moral execution of the interbellic philosophers. Lucretiu Patrascanu (1900 – 1954) was the author of a work, Currents and Tendencies in Romanian Philosophy, which will establish for decades the status of the Romanian philosophers. With mostly rudimentary means, with over-simplifications, appealing to the “Marxist-Leninist” doctrine, Patrascanu demolished philosophers as Blaga, Radulescu-Motru, Florian, Cioran and “exposed” them as idealists, irrationalists, mystics, bourgeois, imperialists and sometimes fascists. Among the local pseudo-Marxists a new star emerged quickly, Constantin I. Gulian (b. 1914), still member of the Romanian Academy. Gulian produced at the peak of his career several expositions of the Hegelian philosophy, completely lacking interest. After the first decades, when philosophy was taught in Universities by dentists or illiterate workers turned into professors over night, followed a period when the Stalinist dogma lost much of its sovereign authority.

After 1964, the date of the great amnesty of the political prisoners, the philosophical life could revert to being, partly catalysed by the professional reinsertion of the marginalised interbellic surviving philosophers. Thus, we can distinguish several “schools” of philosophers: the interbellic school, the Paltinis school, the epistemological school of Bucharest. Independent figures existed, of course, mostly as university professors.

The Interbellic School

The name of “school” is even more inappropriate in this case than it was before, when we spoke of Nae Ionescu’s shcool or of that of Maiorescu. We speak of the Interbellic school in the same manner in which we speak of “the old school”. The most important philosophers formed in the interbellic period and that could practice again philosophy and remained significantly creative are: Mircea Florian, Constantin Noica, Anton Dumitriu, Mihai Sora (b. 1916), Petre Tutea (1902 – 1991), Alexandru Dragomir (1916 – 2002).

Mircea Florian wrote in the 60’s in solitude a system of philosophy presented in a two-volume treatise called The Recessivity as the Structure of the World. Florian arrives at the conclusion that experience is characterised by an invariant, the relation of recessivity that holds between two concepts. This relation is neither a relation of opposition, like the contrariety, nor one of concordance, like the subordination. It is a special relation which exhibits features of both types of inter-notional relation acknowledged by logic. It is both a relation of subordination, and a relation of opposition. In a pair of concepts united by this relation, there is one which is hierarchically superior, called the “dominant” concept, and another which, although hierarchically inferior, is ontologically superior, called the “recessive” concept. Florian shows that every important concept of philosophy belongs to a pair which instantiates recessivity. He analysed several dozens of such pairs, writing for each term practically a micro-monograph.

Constantin Noica become during communism, after his release from prison, a continental metaphysician of European dimensions, arguably one of the greatest of the 20^th century.

His first book published after detention was 27 Steps of the Real. He unifies here three categorial systems, those of Plato, Aristotle, and Kant. Under a Hegelian, but maybe also Hartamannian influence, he thought the reality, divided in three realms, inorganic, organic and spiritual, is characterised by three distinct sets of categories. At the peak of this categorial ladder he put a new category, which reflects the impact that physics had on his thought: the undulation, or the wave, which became thus the supreme category.

He followed later the model of Vulcanescu, and he wrote several books which brought him over night celebrity, especially in the literary circles. Books as Creation and Beauty in the Romanian Speaking, or The Romanian Feeling of the Being, masterpieces of etymological speculation and philosophical hermeneutics, have though limited value, being of interest only to those researching the Romanian spirituality per se. In these books Noica arrived at the conclusion that the Romanian language possesses a word, a preposition, which mediates a unique access to the realm of being. It is the proposition întru, which expresses the processuality of the being or what he calls „the becoming in-to (întru) the being”. This idiomatic preposition, of Latin provenance (intro) stands for more than a spatial inclusion: it indicates a going on, a movement both toward something, and within that something.

His ontology (more correctly called metaphysics) is edified without idiomatic peculiarities in two later works: The Becoming in-to the Being and Letters on the Logic of Hermes, but it was present since Six Maladies of the Contemporary Spirit. In these works the monolithic unity of being is broken, and being displays three instances. The being of first instance is arrived at phenomenologically. Thus, the being of the things appears as a functional model, the structure Individual – Determinations – General (I-D-G), which the things are striving to realise. But the model of the being is rarely found realised as such; most currently it is incomplete, only two of the three terms being present. Thus, there are six incomplete, unsaturated formations, called by Noica „ontological precariousness” or „maladies of the being (spirit, in Six maladies...)”. These maladies, schematically represented as I-G, G-I, I-D, D-I, D-G, and G-D, are the rule of the real. The being of second instance is the „element”, characterised as an individual-general, which is an entity that is not a particular, i.e. its conditions of identity do not make reference to a single spatio -temporal location. Something is an individual-general if it distributes itself without dividing. Like the Whiteheadian ingression, the “distribution without dividing” is a rethinking of the Platonic participation. A favourite exemplification of the nature of an element is for Noica the concept of biological species. The elements are characterised by different categories than the things, of a speculative nature, like unity-multiplicity-totality, reality-possibility-necessity. The being of the third instance, or the being qua being, is theorised in several pages of an incredible density, and in a language close to theology. Noica attempts to rethink here the problem of the one and the many, in a Parmenidean – Platonic style. He formulates as a criterion for being the same “distribution without dividing”.

Methodologically, Noica is an anti-Hegelian Hegelian. He revises the Hegelian dialectics, accused of being dominated by the “ethos of the neutrality”. In Hegelian logic, he says, Hegel himself must intervene in order to give the concepts the necessary impetus for their movement. They do not have in themselves the power to move dialectically. Noica considers that the dialectics is circular and tetradic. The scheme thesis – antithesis – synthesis is replaced by him with the rival scheme theme – anti-theme – thesis – theme (refound). The spirit, Noica says, begins not with a thesis, but with a thematic horizon in which it moves, and into which it digs repeatedly, going more and more toward the intimacy of this horizon. Several of Noica’s concepts, which permit him to articulate his views on dialectics, are difficult to comprehend and require much sympathy from the reader in order to be accepted: “the non-limiting limitation”, “the opening closure” etc.

Noica’s philosophy is concerned, besides the problem of the being, with the problem of the reason and the problem of the individual. He redefines the reason as “the conscience of the becoming in-to being”. The philosopher wanted to save the individual from “the tyranny of the general”, to give to the individual an “ontological dignity”. He was deeply deranged by the image of the individual as a simple instance of generals, as a simple particular case of a general rule. But he intended also to maintain the reality of the general natures, not wanting to reduce them at mere collections or classes of individuals. Thus, he refused both the Platonic realism, and the nominalism of all kinds. Instead of choosing between nominalism and realism, he proposes a third version, which insists on the solidarity existent between individuals and generals, on the fact that they are linked by their determinations. His triangle I-D-G forms thus an irreducible unity, reminding of Peirce’s triad.

Constantin Noica formed around him an unofficial school of philosophy, based at Paltinis, a mountain location where he spent his last living years. Paltinis became a place of pilgrimage for the Romanian youth, who went there to search a spiritual mentor. Noica became thus a kind of national institution with an influence unequalled by any other intellectual figure before or after him. He imposed to his disciples the study of Greek and German, and he made them read “cultures”, not authors and certainly not isolated books. He had an effervescent activity of translator, initiating the Plato integral edition in Romanian. He translated also from the neo-Platonic Aristotelian commentators, Dexippus, Ammonius, Porphyry and others. He contributed to the translation of Kant’s Critique of Judgement, and he translated from Chorydaleus, the Introduction to logic and the Commentary to Metaphysics. He himself wrote commentaries and interpretations of Plato, Aristotle, and Hegel, and encouraged the introduction of Heidegger in the Romanian culture. He was by far the sun of this cloudy period of the Romanian cultural evolution.

Anton Dumitriu continued after 1964 his initial preoccupations, publishing in the philosophy of mathematics and in the theory and history of logic. His enormous History of Logic, although a landmark of the Romanian philosophy and of the discipline, suffered by many shortcomings and had a rather bad reception in Occident. Dumitriu included both too much in his history, having chapters on the transcendental and dialectical logic, and too little, not treating many branches of recent logic, or treating them completely sketchy and insufficient, like in the case of the modal logic. Also, he was many times misinformed in what concerns the Scholastic philosophy. However, there are many parts of this work that are still valuable today.

Anton Dumitriu wrote also a series of essays, more literary in style, which made him well agreed by the literature-centred Romanian intellectuality. Thus, he published Philosophia Mirabilis, an essay on the esoteric dimension of the Greek philosophy, Eleatic Cultures and Heracleitean Cultures, a comparative essay in the philosophy of culture, or Aletheia, a study of the Greek meaning of truth and of philosophy, where he criticises Heidegger’s position from Introduction to Metaphysics.

Mihai Sora was a student of Nae Ionescu and Mircea Eliade, but younger than the members of the ’27 generation. He obtained in 1938 a bourse at the Sorbonne, where he went for preparing a thesis on Pascal. During war time he wrote a book called On the Interior Dialogue, published only in 1947 at Gallimard, and well received by Jacques Maritain and Etienne Gilson. In this work Sora explores the problem of human authenticity, in an existential tone, but influenced greatly by the Scholastic philosophy (notably that of Toma d’Acquino and Cusanus) and by Marxism (he was a member of the French communist party and a fighter in the Résistance).

In 1948 he will return to Romania, and he will be not allowed to live the country anymore. He will not publish anything until the end of the 70’s, when he will begin a cycle of four books, containing a philosophical system, achieved only in 2005. During communist regime he wrote and published three of the four books composing the cycle: The Salt of the Earth, To be, the do, to have and I & You & He & She or the Generalised Dialogue. His last book is called The Instant and the Time.

His system contains an ontology, a poetics, an ethics and a political philosophy, all deriving from an original “ontological model”. The influences come from Péguy, Pascal, the Scholastics and from Husserl. Sora considered himself ever since his first book a “Cartesian of the utmost consequence”, i.e. a phenomenologist.

His concept of intentionality, crucial for the comprehension of his philosophy, will be neither that of Brentano, nor that of Husserl, but an original one with deep roots in the Scholastic philosophy. In-tentio, derived from IN aliud TENDERE is the penetrating act of the spirit, which goes beyond the things into their origin, which is the Unum with his three transcendentals: Bonum, Verum and Pulchrum. Thus, we have three forms of intentionality, moral, theoretical and esthetical, characterising three types of human attitudes toward the world. The Unum is not viewed only as an actus purus, but rather as an “universal potentiality of being”. As such, ie is placed, in Sora’s metaphorical model, at the centre of a sphere of null radius, which has, thus, the same topos as the periphery. The surface of this sphere represents the pure exteriority, composed of “terminal actualities”. The radius is the geometrical locus of the interiority, where we find the “intermediary potentialities”.

Mihai Sora is the mentor of another “school”, more discrete and heterogeneous than the school of Noica, and there is currently an increasing interest in his work, especially from the young philosophers grouped around the Studia Phaenomonologica philosophical review.

Petre Tutea was a doctor in juridical sciences who worked before the war as a director in the Ministry of National Economy. He was well-known by all the members of the ’27 generation, even if he was a little older that them. He already had the reputation of an oral genius, and when he spoke everybody stood and listened. There are voices which consider him the “chief of the generation”. After a Marxist youth, he developed rightist sympathies, fact that will lead to his political condemnation. In prison he rediscovered the Christianity, and after his release he will consider himself a “Christian anthropologist”.

Although, with his past, he could not publish very much, he wrote much, projecting a work in five volumes, The Problems, The Systems, The Styles, The Sciences and The Dogmas. He realised the first two volumes, and a part of The Dogmas, which were published posthumously. An important work is also the essay The Philosophy of the Nuances. Tutea was influenced by a whole plethora of interbellic and ante-bellic intellectual characters, but mostly by the fictionalism of Hans Vaihinger. Theologically, he was under the sway of St. Thomas and of St. Paul, and economically he admired much Werner Sombart.

His philosophy, he says, is an effort of theologal (not theological) thinking which rejects the classical categorial thinking of the occidental philosophy, replacing the categorial frameworks with a spectre of nuances. He considered that the Truth is unique, and that the human reason can not find the truth, but serves only as a receptacle of the truth. Thus, in order to know the truth the man needs a revelation. Therefore, the man is not autonomous, and his efforts of seeking the truth, like the science or the philosophy are but means of producing fictions which do not overcome the level of utility and mental commodity. Tutea believed that the science and the philosophy don’t have any consolatory function, being thus irrelevant with respect to the most dramatic problems of man, like death. Thus, only religion (that is, Christianity) holds the truth and bears relevance to the destiny of men. Without it, he said, the man is a rational animal which comes from nowhere and goes to nowhere. Anthropologically, Tutea analysed what he called “the Christian man”. He found that the anthropological model to be pursued is that of the saint.

Tutea was undoubtedly a Socratic figure, and a less gifted writer, as the Romanians could convinced themselves after 1989, when several TV interviews of Tutea were realised. He was surrounded by disciples, and he was universally called “Professor”, even if his “chair” was under the free sky, in a central park of Bucharest. Several of his disciples are known names in the contemporary Romanian culture.

Alexandru Dragomir was a late discovery for the Romanian public. He was a former doctoral student of Heidegger, who wrote secretly and never published anything. In his old days he began giving private seminaries, which he carried on until his recent death, where he accepted a very narrow group of intellectuals. After his death several manuscripts were found, proving that Dragomir was a phenomenologist of great class. Among this manuscripts, whose publication is not finished, there are several notebooks filled out with reflections on time, which form the most consistent part of his thought. The influence of Dragomir on the Romanian philosophy is still to come. For the time being, Studia Phaenomenologica dedicated one of its numbers to this philosopher.

The Paltinis School

Constantin Noica was in a continuous search for the gifted young philosophers, which he discovered and trained. Among these (at the time being) young men, there are several which imposed themselves in the philosophical and literary, or rather literary-philosophical Romanian environment. Such are Gabriel Liiceanu (b. 1942), Andrei Plesu (b. 1948), Sorin Vieru (b. 1933), Andrei Cornea (b. 1952), Vasile Dem. Zamfirescu, Alexandru Surdu (b. 1938) and Corneliu Mircea.

Gabriel Liiceanu grew to prominence when he published The Paltinis Diary, the intellectual diary of his paideic adventure under Noica’s guidance. It was also the book that transformed Noica into a star. The Diary is perhaps the most influent Romanian philosophical book of the 20^th century, provoking the endless pilgrimage of the youth to Paltinis, and determining even now the young to study ancient Greek, Latin, German, in order to begin the serious study of the philosophy. The philosophical project of Liiceanu focused on the idea of “limit”, and he called his inquiry into the nature and history of this concept “peratology” (from the Greek peras = limit). His program was realised in a first phase in The Tragic. A Phenomenology of Limit and Overcoming, his PhD thesis, where he lays much accent on Nietzsche, and accomplished in On Limit, the final and general expression of his peratology. On Limit treats of liberty, destiny, responsibility, encounter with the other, in a framework basically Heideggerian. Liiceanu is the one which initiated and supported the translation of Heidegger into Romanian.

Andrei Plesu remarked himself as an art historian, but also as a subtle philosopher. He was more interested in the “light” philosophy, as he had a “respectful antipathy” towards Aristotle and considered that he had absolutely no use for Hegel. He oriented himself toward ethics and the philosophy of religion. His focal idea is that of the “interval”, as a space of itinerancy. Plesu wrote one of the very few Romanian treaties of etics, Minima Moralia, which is an ethics of the interval. It begins by affirming that only the man in the condition of itinerancy has moral competence, only him needing to make choices at every step of the way. Thus, his ethics is not one of the great problems and puzzles, but an ethics of the quotidian life and of ordinary situations. Further on, he explored the theme of the interval in his On the Angels, a book of angelology, arising at the intersection between metaphysics and the philosophy of religion. In this book, the entities called angels are analysed as a cases of “beings of the interval”. The entire exercise has thus the secondary value of ontology of the interval.

Sorin Vieru is one of the Paltinis logicians. He established his reputation by his researches on the classical syllogistic, which he axiomatised. He was also a specialist in Frege, from which he translated abundantly. His interests covered also the Greek philosophy, mostly Plato’s political philosophy. He translated several of Plato’s most difficult dialogues. Finally, he published an essay on The Risk of Thinking, in collaboration with the mathematician Uther Morgenstern, alias Terente Robert.

Andrei Cornea is a specialist in the ancient Greek philosophy and also a political thinker. During the communist regime he published little in the domain of philosophy, but he translated Plato’s Republic. After 1989 he published intensively. Thus, we can cite his interpretation to Plato from Plato. Philosophy and Censorship, his interesting rehabilitation of the points of view sophistically rejected by Plato’s Socrates from When Socrates is not Right, or his proposing of replacing the concept of utopia with that of ek-topia, as opposed to en-topia. But perhaps his most important contribution is the valuable critique of contemporary relativism from The Khazar Tourney. He translated Aristotle’s Metaphysics and a great part of Porphyry’s Enneads.

Vasile Dem. Zamfirescu’s main interests are in psychoanalysis. Therefore, his philosophy bears the marks of these interests. He wrote a book on The Logic of the Heart and the Logic of the Mind, well liked by Noica, and after 1989 he published his Philosophy of the Unconsciuos (2 volumes), exploring the philosophical potential of the psychoanalytical idea of unconscious.

Alexandru Surdu was one of the earliest collaborators on Noica, but in a great measure independent. He specialised initially in logic, publishing books on Intuitionism and Intuitionist logic. He also studied the Aristotelian logic, thus arriving to his The Theory of Pre-judicative Forms, a rethinking of the categories with the means of formal logic. After 1989 he published on the Romanian philosophy and speculative philosophy. Notable volumes are The Pentamorphosis of Art and The Speculative Philosophy. Alexandru Surdu is, like Noica, an anti-Hegelian Hegelian. Thus, he criticises Hegel for his “absolutisation” of triadic dialectics, he criticises also Noica for absolutising the tetradic dialectics, while proposing his version of a pentadic dialectics. He maintains, though, that diverse experiential realms are to be investigated by diverse dialectics, binary, triadic, tetradic or pentadic. His philosophy continues the long-time discredited epistemology of the faculties, which he complicates by speaking of five faculties of thinking. Thus, we have: intellect, rational intellect, reason, speculative reason, and speculation. The categories of the systematic philosophy, as determined by Surdu, are also five: Transcendence/Subsistence, Being, Existence, Real Existence, and Reality. Surdu was one of the translators of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus into Romanian and he translated also from Kant.

Corneliu Mircea is a psychiatrist and also a philosopher, encouraged by Noica, but not actually one of his disciples. Still, his interests, themes, and style, places him in the Paltinis circle, where he paid visits regularly. He published quite consistently. During communism he gave, among other publications, The Book of Being, Being and Consciousness, Discourse on Being, and after 1989 he published (among other things) The Originary, Being and Ek-stasis, The Making. A Treatise on Being. Influenced by Hegel and by Sartre, his philosophy is an inquiry into the meaning of being, commencing with the nothingness, in an attempt of rethinking both Hegel’s Logic and Sartre’s Being and Nothingness. He cultivate a deliberate literary expression, maintaining that the philosophical discourse must have two sides, one conceptually objective, the other subjective, esthetical, persuasive. Lately, Corneliu Mircea seems close to a certain form of mystical philosophy of the revelation.

The Epistemological School of Bucharest

Following the examples of Anton Dumitriu, Grigore Moisil or Octav Onicescu, several teachers at the University of Bucharest oriented themselves toward epistemology and the philosophy of science, where the ideological control and interference did not exist. After the demise of the communism, they continued their preoccupations, but they wrote also on other subjects. The protagonists of this school were Mircea Flonta (b. 1932), Ilie Parvu (b. 1941), Vasile Tonoiu (b. 1941), and Marin Turlea (b. 1940).

Mircea Flonta wrote a valuable monograph on the theme of the analytic/synthetic distinction in contemporary philosophy, and a study on the Philosophical Presuppositions of the Exact Sciences. He can be considered the first analytical philosopher in Romania, understanding philosophy as a critical study of presuppositions. His activity continued after 1989 and diversified, as he approached such themes as the perception of the philosophy in the Romanian culture.

Ilie Parvu is an epistemologist, philosopher of science, metaphysician and interpreter of Kant.

His Introduction to Epistemology was the first book of this kind who had an European level, after the period in which the only epistemology was the Marxist-Leninist one. It is still the best autochthon introduction available. His studies in the philosophy of science (Tne Scientific Theory, The Semantics and the Logic of Science) laid accent mostly on the contemporary formal instruments of analysis of the scientific theories. Parvu can be considered as belonging to the structuralist current in the philosophy of science, following J. Sneed, J. Stegmuller, C.U. Mouline, W. Balzer etc.

The structuralist analysis of theories was applied by Ilie Parvu in the domain of the reconstruction of some crucial philosophical works, like the Tractatus of Wittgenstein or the Critique of Pure Reason.

As a metaphysician, Parvu published the two-volume The Architecture of Existence. In the first volume he analyses the structural-generative paradigm in ontology. He conceives of an ontological theory as having an abstract-structural nucleus, which generates its applications not by direct instantiation, but by restrictions and specialisations of this nucleus, which evolves at the same time with the application. Professor Parvu analysed also the theories capable of furnishing decisive mediations between the structural abstraction of the nucleus and the world of empiric evidence. In the second volume he analysed the contemporary analytic metaphysics, the great ontological contemporary constructive programs, as that of Carnap or Quine, as well as diverse local metaphysics, like that of dispositions, powers, the ontologies of events, and different theories of the individual. He presented also important discussions concerning the metaontology, constructional apparatus, style and techniques in recent metaphysics.

Vasile Tonoiu was interested mostly in continental philosophy of science, translating Poincaré, Gonseth, Bachelard, and writing monographs on Gonseth and Bachelard. He also published a book on Morin’s epistemological vision of complexity. Another chief interest of Tonoiu’s is the dialogic philosophy, or the philosophy of the dialogue. He wrote also an excellent book on Mircea Eliade, Archaic Ontologies in Actuality.

Marin Turlea dedicated his career to the philosophy of mathematics. His work on The Philosophy and the Fundaments of the Mathematics traces a distinction between the foundational and the foundationist research in mathematics, i.e. between the mathematics’ own research on its foundations, and the philosophical research of the fundaments of the mathematics. He establishes thus the possibilities, sphere of action and relevance of the philosophical study of mathematics. Following the lines of the program indicated in this first work, Turlea will elaborate a Philosophy of Mathematics, more like a history of the philosophical problems connected with the mathematics, from Plato and Proclus to Principa Mathematica. He will analyse the metaphysics of mathematical entities in his Existence and Truth in Mathematics, and he will study Wittgenstein’s philosophy (or rather anti-philosophy) of mathematics.

The Marxism

In Romania Marxism did not produce any great name. Within the mass of ideologists with philosophical pretensions, several figures detach though as honest philosophers.

This is the case of Athanase Joja (1904 – 1972), logician and interpret of the ancient philosophy, with contributions to Marxist “dialectical logic”. He founded the Romanian Academy’s Institute of Logic, where many interbellic philosophers, including Noica, were reinserted professionally.

Another Marxist figure was Henry Wald (1920 - 200, whose thinking was a mixture of French structuralism and Marxism, and who wrote also a Dialectical Logic.

Ion Ianosi (b. 1928) is a Marxist philosopher from a higher class, very close to literature, being for many years the secretary of the literary critique section of the Union of the Writers from Romania. He published a trilogy on the esthetical category of the sublime, a volume on Hegel and the Art and many others, among which a study of the Romanian philosophy in its rapport with the literature, Philosophy and Literature.

c) Post-communist period

After the Revolution from 1989, the philosophy in Romania began rapidly to synchronize with the Western contemporary philosophy.

Thus, the phenomenology is represented especially by two groups, one from Cluj, with Virgil Ciomos and Ion Copoeru as main characters, the other from Bucharest, developped as a consequence of Liiceanu’s influene. This later group includes the editors of Studia Phaenomenologica, Cristian Ciocan and Gabriel Cercel, and the Heideggeriens like Catalin Cioaba or Bogdan Minca. Virgil Ciomos published phenomenological lectures of Aristotle and Kant, while Copoeru is a Husserlian scholar. Florin Cioaba is for the time being the most important Heideggerian Scholar in Romania.

The post-modernism in Romanian philosophy has as recent notable exponents Ciprian Mihali and Bogdan Ghiu. Although Mihali is interested in the phenomenological analysis of the quotidian, his thinking is deeply rooted in the French post-structuralism. Ghiu, through his translations and essays was also a very important diffuser of the post-modern French philosophy in Romania.

The analytical philosophy is developed mostly at the University of Bucharest, by such names as Mircea Dumitru, Adrian-Paul Iliescu, Valentin Muresan, Mihail-Radu Solcan. Mircea Dumitru wrote on philosophical logic, the philosophy of language and the philosophy of mind. Iliescu is a political philosopher (liberalism and cosrvatism), but also has interests in the philosophy of language, publishing a book on Wittgenstein. Valentin Muresan works in the field of ethics, practicing the species on the philosophical commentary. He published commentaries of Plato, Aristotle, and Mill. Professor Solcan contributed to the development of the philosophy of mind in Romania, publishing an introduction to the philosophy of mind form the perspective of the cognitive sciences.

A philosopher intellectually affiliated to the interbellic tradition, very close to the members of the Paltinis school, is Horia-Roman Patapievici. He was saluted by Liiceanu as a “Romanian Kierkegaard” for his first published essays. His most ambitious realisation is a treatise on The Modern Man. In this book of political philosophy Patapievici develops a conservative critique of the modernity, vast and of unequal pertinence, but making him however the most important Romanian conservative thinker of today.

Finally, many university philosophers, exponents of a style rather continental, continue the interbellic tradition of the Jack-of-all-trades philosophers, producing mostly works of history of the philosophy and of philosophical hermeneutics.

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[1] The Romanian Philosophy (rom.), Bucuresti : Institutul Grafic Rasaritul, 1922

[2] See C. Schifirneţ (ed.)Philosophy and Nation (rom.), Bucureşti : Albatros, 2003, a collection of the interbellic texts on the subject of the Romanian philosophy, its existence and specificity.

[3] Cf. Pages on the Romanian Soul (rom.), Bucuresti : Humanitas, 1991, 2^nd edition (first edition 1944)

[4] History of the Romanian Philosophy (rom.), Bucharest: Editura Academiei R.S.R., 1986, vol. 1

[5] Alexandru Surdu, Eulogy of the Romanian Philosophy (rom.), Bucharest: Editura Academiei, 1993; Romanian Philosophical Vocations (rom.), Bucharest: Editura Academiei, 1997; C. Aslam, The Palimpsest of the Romanian Identity, Bucharest: Crater, 2000

[6] Marta Petreu, Mircea Flonta, Ioan Lucian Muntean, “Romania, philosophy in”, Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2004

[7] See for that P.P. Panaitescu, The Catalogue of the Slavonic Manuscripts from the Library of the Romanian Academy (rom.), Bucharest, Editura Academiei R.P.R., 1952; N. Cartojan, The History of the Old Romanian Literature (rom.), Bucharest: The Foundation for Literature and Art “King Carol”, 1940-1945

[8] Critical edition (rom.) by Florica Moisil and Dan Zamfirescu, with a new translation from the Slavonian original by G. Mihaila, Bucharest: Minerva, 1970

[9] The Divan, or the Quarrel of the Wise Man with the World, or the Trial of the Soul and the Body (rom.), in Opere, vol. 1, edition by V. Candea, Bucharest, Editura Academiei R.P.R, 1973; The Salvation of the wise man and the ruin of the sinful world arabic edition, English translation, editor's note, notes and indices by Ioana Feodorov ; introduction and comments by Virgil Cândea, Bucharest, Editura Academiei, 2006

[10] Compendiolum logicae (1705), Small Companion to the Whole Doctrine of Logic, translated into Romanian by Dan Slusanschi, Bucharest, Editura Stiintifica, 1995

[11] Published as The Metaphysics, translated into Romanian by N. Locusteanu, Bucharest, Ancora, 1928

[12] Théophile Chorydalée, Œuvres philosophiques, Bucarest : Assciation Internationale d'Études du Sud-Est Européen.Comité National Roumain, 1970- ; vol.1 : Introduction à la logique, tr. Constantin Noica, 1970 ; vol. 2 : Commentaires à la métaphysique, tr. Constantin Noica, 1973.

[13] See Cléobule Tsourkas, Les débuts de l’enseignement philosophique et de la libre pensée dans les Balkans : la vie et l’œuvre de Théophile Corydalée (1570 – 1646), Thessaloniki : Institute for Balkqn Studies, 1967, 2^nd edition. Also George Henderson, The Revival of the GreekThought 1620 – 1830, Albany : SUNY Press, 1970

[14] See Paschalis Kitromildes, Neohellenic Enlightenment, tr. rom. Olga Cianci, Bucharest, Omonia, 2005; Henderson, op. cit., Ariadna Camariano-Cioran, Les Académies princières de Bucarest et Jassy et leurs professeurs, Thessaloniki: Institute for Balkan Studies, 1974

[15] The Logic, Buda, 1799; The Ethics, Sibiu, 1800, Philosophical writings (containing manuscripts), Bucharest: Editura Stiintifica, 1966. See also Lucian Blaga, The Romanian Thinking in Transylvania in the 18^th century (rom.), Bucharest: Editura Stiintifica, 1966

[16] Apologia, Rom. transl. by Ariadna Camariano-Cioran, Bucharest: Editura Pedagogica, 1977 (vol. 1 only); see also the important momography of Kitromilides, The Enlightenment as Social Criticism. Iosipos Moisiodax and Greek Culture in the Eighteenth Century, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992. The first edition of this book, Ιώσηπος Μοισιόδαξ. Οι συντεταγμένες της βαλκανικής σκέψης τον δέκατο όγδοο αιώνα [Iossipos Moisiodax. The coordinates of Balkan thought in the eighteenth century], Athens: Cultural Foundation of the National Bank of Greece, 1985, was translated into Romanian by Lia Brad-Chisacof, Bucharest: Demiurg, 2000.

[17] Moral and PanegyricDiscourses (Rom.), Bucharest, 1826, containing among other things an inaugural speech of the philosophy course from The St. Sava Academy, 1825. He translated from Heineccius, The Philosophy of the Thought and of the Habits, that is the Logic and the Ethics Elementary, Buda, 1829. From around 1825 we have a translation from Soave’s metaphysics, published as “Elements of metaphysics”, BOR, an. XCIX, 1981, no.5-6, p.675-689. Of philosophical importance are his autobiographical pages, Autobiographical notes (Rom.), Craiova: Aius, 2005.

[18] Equilibrium between Antitheses, or the Spirit and the Matter (Rom.), Bucharest, 1859-1869; The Biblics, or Historical, Philosophical,Religious and Political Notes on the Bible (Rom.), Paris: Preve, 1858, Critical Universal History: a Posthumous Writing, Bucharest, 1892. See on his philosophy G.D. Scraba, Ion Heliade-Radulescu: the Beginnings of the Romanian Philosophy and Sociology (Rom.), Bucharest: The Editions of the Socec Foundation, 1921 (a very useful and erudite study, with a first assessment of the Hegelian influence on Heliade-Radulescu); Radu Tomoioaga, Ion Heliade Radulescu: the Social-Political and Philosophical Ideology, Bucharest: Editura Stiintifica, 1971 (an informative monography, even if Marxist, laying accent on the influence of Proudhon).

[19] The best edition of this work is Logic, with the Rectifications, Additions and Autograph Markings of the Author, with annotations, notes and introductory study by Iosif Brucar (Rom.), Bucharest: Imprimeria Nationala, 1940. For his philosophy see especially N. Bagdasar, The History of the Romanian Philosophy (Rom.), Bucharest: The Romanian Society of Philosophy, 1940.

[20] B. Conta: Théorie du fatalisme (essai de philosophie matérialiste), Bruxelles : G. Mayolez, 1877 ; Introduction à la métaphysique, Bruxelles : G. Mayolez, 1880 ; Premiers principes composant le monde, Jassy : Imprimerie Nationale, 1888 ; Les fondements de la métaphysique, Paris : Félix Alcan, 1890 ; Théorie de l’ondulation universelle, essai sur l’évolution, Paris : F. Alcan, 1895. On Conta’s philosophy see Dan Badarau, Un système matérialiste métaphysique au XIXe siècle. La Philosophie de Basile Conta, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1924 ; Ion A. Radulescu-Pogoneanu, Über das Leben und die Philosophie Contas, Inaugural-Dissertation, Leipzig : Druck van O. Schmidt, 1902.

[21] A. D. Xenopol, Les principes fondamentaux de l’histoire, Paris : A. Leroux, 1899, 2^nd edition as La théorie de l’histoire, Paris : E. Leroux, 1908. For his thinking see O. Botez, Alexandru Xenopol: Theorist and Philosopher of History (Rom.), Bucharest, Typography Ion C. Vacarescu, 1928 (the most adequate Romanian monography) and Bagdasar, op. cit.. Also, Angela Giustina Vitolo, Storia e metodo in Alexandru D. Xenopol: un dibattito europeo, Napoli, Ed. Schientifiche italiane, 1995.