Jules Lachelier reader of Maine de Biran. Contention and legacy

The relationship between the philosophies of Jules Lachelier and Maine de Biran is not as straightforward as it may first appear. Credited by Jean-Amable de La Valette Montbrun with defining Biran as the “French Kant”, Lachelier seems to have paid more than simple tribute to the father of French spiritualism, and in fact directly positioned himself within Biran’s philosophical lineage. Indeed, as many scholars have noted, Lachelier’s idealism is hard to separate from the line of spiritualism, developed by Félix Ravaisson, that was modelled off Biran’s thought. Though heavily influenced by Kantian critical philosophy and the epistemology of knowledge, Lachelier’s idealism draws several theorizations and perspectives from Biranism, including the notions of will, effort, and resistance. Yet while this interpretative trend correctly detects a line of continuity traversing these two bodies of thought, it nonetheless risks overshadowing their multiple points of tension and methodological divergence. Instead of yielding to the temptation to call Biran’s influence on Lachelier weak or, at best, filtered through the lens of Ravaisson’s spiritualism, we thus might ask to what extent Lachelier’s philosophy should be defined as “Biranian.”