Maine de Biran's 'Of Immediate Apperception'

Written when Maine de Biran was coming into his philosophical maturity, in 1807, 'Of Immediate Apperception' was the first complete statement of his own philosophy of the will. It was the winning entry to a competition organised by the Berlin Académie des Sciences et Belles-Lettres on the subject of self-awareness and of the possibility of an ‘immediate apperception’ of the self. It contains the core of Biran’s philosophy of effort, as it is developed in dialogue with the tradition of British empiricism in particular. Notably, it is in this work that Biran first reflects on the ‘lived body’ and it marks the moment in which he fully accomplishes his break away from Condillac and the Ideological school. With enlightening critical apparatus, including an editor's introduction, glossary, and bibliography, the publication of this edition shows how Biran's work is pivotal for the development of French philosophy, and makes clear his influence on the later writings of Ravaisson and Bergson.

The philosophy of Maine de Biran has received, in the contemporary era, less attention than it deserved … This recent translation, beside fostering the penetration of Biranian reflection within the Anglophone milieu, brings to the attention of the international community one of the most important works of the French philosopher … essential reading for the understanding of his philosophical project., Modern French philosophy began in earnest with Maine de Biran, and, with this exceptional translation, Anglophone scholarship has taken another step closer to acknowledging this truth. It is a vital addition to the study of French philosophy, including an editorial introduction that provides an outstanding overview of de Biran’s place between Locke, Condillac and Kant, on the one hand, and Ravaisson, Bergson and Merleau-Ponty, on the other, This publication makes available to English readers for the first time a crucial text in the history of nineteenth-century French philosophy. It’s the clearest presentation available in English so far of Maine de Biran’s most central philosophical theses – including his argument for our immediate experience of willed effort. This translation, produced by one of the period’s best scholars, is careful and clear, and the text itself is of great philosophical interest for all those interested in the nineteenth-century history of the philosophy of mind and psychology.

Maine de Biran (1766 – 1824) was a prominent 19th-century French Philosopher and Politician. Alessandra Aloisi is Lecturer in 18th and 19th-century French at the University of Oxford, UK. Marco Piazza is Associate Professor in Philosophy at the University of Roma Tre, Italy. Mark Sinclair is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK and Associate Editor (Reviews) at the British Journal for the History of Philosophy.