Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No. 7, 2023

The Intellectual Landscape of French Rationalistic Epistemology

(Abstract)

Yu Qizhi

French rationalistic epistemology stems from René Descartes. The Cartesian cogito is not only the starting point of rationalistic epistemology but also the first principle of philosophy. Descartes fulfilled the mission of integrating geometry into algebra, and brought philosophy into conformity with knowledge (particularly scientific knowledge). This mission took him and his successors to the domain of mathesis universalis, presenting modern and contemporary philosophy with an intellectual landscape completely different from that of the past. Transcending Cartesianism, Gaston Bachelard’s rationalistic epistemology is a non-Cartesian or historical epistemology. The Bachelardian cogitamus links up the rationalist “I” and “you” and bestows on us a veritable network of coexistence that eventually replaces the Cartesian cogito. The fusion of imagination and knowledge signifies the symbiosis between poetics and the epistemology of science. The French epistemologist Jules Vuillemin’s neo-Cartesian epistemology follows the rationalistic epistemology tradition proposed by philosophers such as Descartes and Bachelard. He proposed an interdisciplinary thought-oriented philosophy of knowledge, making philosophy and science better integrated and more consistent. A major role of philosophy is to bridge a range of disciplines in pursuit of a universalized landscape of philosophical systems.