Louis Rougier
Encyclopedia
Louis Auguste Paul Rougier (1889–1982) was a French philosopher
. Rougier made many important contributions to epistemology, philosophy of science
, political philosophy
and the history of Christianity
.
. Debilitated by pleurisy
in his youth, he was declared unfit for service in World War I
and devoted his adolescence to intellectual pursuits.
After receiving the agrégation de philosophie degree from the University of Lyon
, Rougier taught until 1924 at various lycées
and obtained his doctorate from the Sorbonne
in 1920. His doctoral thesis work was published that year as La philosophie géometrique de Poincaré and Les paralogismes du rationalisme. Rougier already had several publications to his name, however, beginning with a 1914 paper on the use of non-Euclidean geometry
in relativity
theory.
Rougier taught in Algiers
from 1917 to 1920 and then in Rome
from 1920 to 1924. His first university appointment in France
was at the University of Besançon
in 1925, where he served on the faculty until his dismissal in 1948 for political reasons. Further university appointments were in Cairo
from 1931–36, the New School for Social Research from 1941–43 and the Université de Montréal
in 1945. Rougier's final academic appointment was to the Université de Caen in 1954, but he retired at the age of 66 after only one year there.
Rougier lived to the age of 94 and was survived by his third wife, Lucy Friedman. Dr. Friedman, whom he married in 1942, was a former secretary to Moritz Schlick
. Although Friedman had a daughter from a previous marriage, Rougier himself had no children.
and Wittgenstein
, Rougier developed a philosophy based on the idea that systems of logic are neither apodictic
(i.e., necessarily true and therefore deducible
) nor assertoric
(i.e., not necessarily true and whose truth must therefore be induced
through empirical investigation.) Instead, Rougier proposed that the various systems of logic are simply conventions that are adopted based on contingent circumstances.
This view, which implies that there are no "objective," a priori truths that exist independently of the human mind, closely resembled the logical positivism
of the Vienna Circle
. Many members of this group, including Philipp Frank
, greatly admired Rougier's 1920 work Les paralogismes du rationalisme. Rougier soon became the group's only French associate and formed close personal ties to several of its leading members, including Moritz Schlick
(to whom Rougier's 1955 book Traité de la connaissance is dedicated) and Hans Reichenbach
. Rougier also participated as an organizer and contributor to many Vienna Circle activities, including the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science
. Rougier's own contribution to the Encyclopedia never materialized, however, because he soon became one of many participants who ended up quarreling with Otto Neurath
, the project's editor-in-chief.
since the 1879 encyclical Aeterna Patris but was gaining particular momentum during the 1920s and 1930s. Rougier published several works during this period attacking this contemporary revival of scholasticism
, thereby earning the personal enmity of prominent Thomists such as Étienne Gilson
and Jacques Maritain
.
Rougier's objections to Neo-Thomism were not merely philosophical, however, but formed part of a general opposition to Christianity
that he had already begun to develop during his adolescence under the influence of Ernest Renan
. This early opposition to Christianity continued to influence intellectual work of Rougier's maturity, leading him in 1926 to publish a translation of Celsus
that is still in use today.
in the liberal
tradition of Montesquieu, Constant
, Guizot, and Tocqueville. Consistent with his conventionalist epistemology, Rougier believed that political power rests not upon eternally valid claims, but upon conventions that he called mystiques. The only possible reason to prefer one political system over another, he believed, depends not on eternal truths but on purely pragmatic grounds. In other words, political systems should be chosen not based on how "true" they are, but rather on how well they work.
After visiting the Soviet Union
in 1932 on a visit sponsored by France's Ministry of Education, Rougier became convinced that planned economies
do not work as well as market economies
. This conviction led him to participate in the organization of the first neoliberal
organization of the twentieth century, the Colloque Walter Lippmann
, in 1938. During the same year, Rougier helped to found the Centre international d'études pour la rénovation du libéralisme. The political network established by these two groups eventually led to the 1947 foundation of the famous Mont Pelerin Society
, to which Rougier was elected in the 1960s through the personal backing of Friedrich von Hayek
.
Rougier, as one of the founding fathers of neoliberalism
, would no doubt have been admitted to the first meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society had it not been for a second political engagement that proved disastrous to his career and reputation: his activities on behalf of the Vichy
regime in France during World War II
. In October 1940, Philippe Pétain
sent Rougier on a secret mission to the British government in London, where he met with Winston Churchill
between the 21st and the 25th. Rougier later claimed in several published works that these meetings resulted in an agreement between Vichy and Churchill that he called the "Pétain-Churchill accords", an allegation that the British government later denied in an official White Paper
. Although these activities and publications eventually led to Rougier's dismissal in 1948 from his teaching position at the University of Besançon, Rougier continued to be active throughout the 1950s in organizations that defended Pétain. He also published works denouncing the épuration
(the French equivalent of denazification
that was carried out on formerly Vichy territory by the Allies after the war) as illegal and totalitarian. Finally, Rougier was active in an effort that petitioned the United Nations in 1951, alleging that the Allies had committed human rights
violations and war crimes during the Libération.
During the 1970s, Rougier formed a second controversial political alliance: with the Nouvelle Droite
of the French writer Alain de Benoist
. Rougier's long-standing opposition to Christianity
, together with his conviction that "the West" possesses a pragmatically superior mentalité to those of other cultures, aligned closely with the views of this movement. Benoist reissued and wrote prefaces to several of Rougier's earlier works, and in 1974 Benoist's think tank GRECE
published an entirely new book by Rougier: Le conflit du Christianisme primitif et de la civilisation antique.
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
. Rougier made many important contributions to epistemology, philosophy of science
Philosophy of science
The philosophy of science is concerned with the assumptions, foundations, methods and implications of science. It is also concerned with the use and merit of science and sometimes overlaps metaphysics and epistemology by exploring whether scientific results are actually a study of truth...
, political philosophy
Political philosophy
Political philosophy is the study of such topics as liberty, justice, property, rights, law, and the enforcement of a legal code by authority: what they are, why they are needed, what, if anything, makes a government legitimate, what rights and freedoms it should protect and why, what form it...
and the history of Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
.
Biography
Rougier was born in LyonLyon
Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....
. Debilitated by pleurisy
Pleurisy
Pleurisy is an inflammation of the pleura, the lining of the pleural cavity surrounding the lungs. Among other things, infections are the most common cause of pleurisy....
in his youth, he was declared unfit for service in World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
and devoted his adolescence to intellectual pursuits.
After receiving the agrégation de philosophie degree from the University of Lyon
University of Lyon
The University of Lyon , located in Lyon and Saint Etienne, France, is a center for higher education and research comprising 16 institutions of higher education...
, Rougier taught until 1924 at various lycées
Secondary education in France
In France, secondary education is in two stages:* collèges cater for the first four years of secondary education from the ages of 11 to 14...
and obtained his doctorate from the Sorbonne
Sorbonne
The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris...
in 1920. His doctoral thesis work was published that year as La philosophie géometrique de Poincaré and Les paralogismes du rationalisme. Rougier already had several publications to his name, however, beginning with a 1914 paper on the use of non-Euclidean geometry
Non-Euclidean geometry
Non-Euclidean geometry is the term used to refer to two specific geometries which are, loosely speaking, obtained by negating the Euclidean parallel postulate, namely hyperbolic and elliptic geometry. This is one term which, for historical reasons, has a meaning in mathematics which is much...
in relativity
Special relativity
Special relativity is the physical theory of measurement in an inertial frame of reference proposed in 1905 by Albert Einstein in the paper "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies".It generalizes Galileo's...
theory.
Rougier taught in Algiers
Algiers
' is the capital and largest city of Algeria. According to the 1998 census, the population of the city proper was 1,519,570 and that of the urban agglomeration was 2,135,630. In 2009, the population was about 3,500,000...
from 1917 to 1920 and then in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
from 1920 to 1924. His first university appointment in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
was at the University of Besançon
Besançon
Besançon , is the capital and principal city of the Franche-Comté region in eastern France. It had a population of about 237,000 inhabitants in the metropolitan area in 2008...
in 1925, where he served on the faculty until his dismissal in 1948 for political reasons. Further university appointments were in Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
from 1931–36, the New School for Social Research from 1941–43 and the Université de Montréal
Université de Montréal
The Université de Montréal is a public francophone research university in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It comprises thirteen faculties, more than sixty departments and two affiliated schools: the École Polytechnique and HEC Montréal...
in 1945. Rougier's final academic appointment was to the Université de Caen in 1954, but he retired at the age of 66 after only one year there.
Rougier lived to the age of 94 and was survived by his third wife, Lucy Friedman. Dr. Friedman, whom he married in 1942, was a former secretary to Moritz Schlick
Moritz Schlick
Friedrich Albert Moritz Schlick was a German philosopher, physicist and the founding father of logical positivism and the Vienna Circle.-Early life and works:...
. Although Friedman had a daughter from a previous marriage, Rougier himself had no children.
Philosophy
Under the influence of Henri PoincaréHenri Poincaré
Jules Henri Poincaré was a French mathematician, theoretical physicist, engineer, and a philosopher of science...
and Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He was professor in philosophy at the University of Cambridge from 1939 until 1947...
, Rougier developed a philosophy based on the idea that systems of logic are neither apodictic
Apodictic
"Apodictic" or "apodeictic" is an adjectival expression from Aristotelean logic that refers to propositions that are demonstrable, that are necessarily or self-evidently the case or that, conversely, are impossible...
(i.e., necessarily true and therefore deducible
Deductive reasoning
Deductive reasoning, also called deductive logic, is reasoning which constructs or evaluates deductive arguments. Deductive arguments are attempts to show that a conclusion necessarily follows from a set of premises or hypothesis...
) nor assertoric
Assertoric
An assertoric proposition in Aristotelian logic merely asserts that something is the case, in contrast to problematic propositions which assert the possibility of something being true, or apodeictic propositions which assert things which are necessarily or self-evidently true or false. For...
(i.e., not necessarily true and whose truth must therefore be induced
Inductive reasoning
Inductive reasoning, also known as induction or inductive logic, is a kind of reasoning that constructs or evaluates propositions that are abstractions of observations. It is commonly construed as a form of reasoning that makes generalizations based on individual instances...
through empirical investigation.) Instead, Rougier proposed that the various systems of logic are simply conventions that are adopted based on contingent circumstances.
This view, which implies that there are no "objective," a priori truths that exist independently of the human mind, closely resembled the logical positivism
Logical positivism
Logical positivism is a philosophy that combines empiricism—the idea that observational evidence is indispensable for knowledge—with a version of rationalism incorporating mathematical and logico-linguistic constructs and deductions of epistemology.It may be considered as a type of analytic...
of the Vienna Circle
Vienna Circle
The Vienna Circle was an association of philosophers gathered around the University of Vienna in 1922, chaired by Moritz Schlick, also known as the Ernst Mach Society in honour of Ernst Mach...
. Many members of this group, including Philipp Frank
Philipp Frank
Philipp Frank was a physicist, mathematician and also an influential philosopher during the first half of the 20th century. He was a logical-positivist, and a member of the Vienna Circle.He was born on 20 March 1884 in Vienna, Austria, and died on 21 July 1966 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA...
, greatly admired Rougier's 1920 work Les paralogismes du rationalisme. Rougier soon became the group's only French associate and formed close personal ties to several of its leading members, including Moritz Schlick
Moritz Schlick
Friedrich Albert Moritz Schlick was a German philosopher, physicist and the founding father of logical positivism and the Vienna Circle.-Early life and works:...
(to whom Rougier's 1955 book Traité de la connaissance is dedicated) and Hans Reichenbach
Hans Reichenbach
Hans Reichenbach was a leading philosopher of science, educator and proponent of logical empiricism...
. Rougier also participated as an organizer and contributor to many Vienna Circle activities, including the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science
International Encyclopedia of Unified Science
In 1938 a new series of publications started in USA. It was the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science . An ambitious project never completed devoted to unified science...
. Rougier's own contribution to the Encyclopedia never materialized, however, because he soon became one of many participants who ended up quarreling with Otto Neurath
Otto Neurath
Otto Neurath was an Austrian philosopher of science, sociologist, and political economist...
, the project's editor-in-chief.
Religion
Rougier's conventionalist philosophical position naturally led him to oppose Neo-Thomism, which had been the official philosophy of the Roman Catholic ChurchRoman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
since the 1879 encyclical Aeterna Patris but was gaining particular momentum during the 1920s and 1930s. Rougier published several works during this period attacking this contemporary revival of scholasticism
Scholasticism
Scholasticism is a method of critical thought which dominated teaching by the academics of medieval universities in Europe from about 1100–1500, and a program of employing that method in articulating and defending orthodoxy in an increasingly pluralistic context...
, thereby earning the personal enmity of prominent Thomists such as Étienne Gilson
Étienne Gilson
Étienne Gilson was a French Thomistic philosopher and historian of philosophy...
and Jacques Maritain
Jacques Maritain
Jacques Maritain was a French Catholic philosopher. Raised as a Protestant, he converted to Catholicism in 1906. An author of more than 60 books, he helped to revive St. Thomas Aquinas for modern times and is a prominent drafter of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights...
.
Rougier's objections to Neo-Thomism were not merely philosophical, however, but formed part of a general opposition to Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
that he had already begun to develop during his adolescence under the influence of Ernest Renan
Ernest Renan
Ernest Renan was a French expert of Middle East ancient languages and civilizations, philosopher and writer, devoted to his native province of Brittany...
. This early opposition to Christianity continued to influence intellectual work of Rougier's maturity, leading him in 1926 to publish a translation of Celsus
Celsus
Celsus was a 2nd century Greek philosopher and opponent of Early Christianity. He is known for his literary work, The True Word , written about by Origen. This work, c. 177 is the earliest known comprehensive attack on Christianity.According to Origen, Celsus was the author of an...
that is still in use today.
Politics
Rougier was also a political philosopherPolitical philosophy
Political philosophy is the study of such topics as liberty, justice, property, rights, law, and the enforcement of a legal code by authority: what they are, why they are needed, what, if anything, makes a government legitimate, what rights and freedoms it should protect and why, what form it...
in the liberal
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
tradition of Montesquieu, Constant
Benjamin Constant
Henri-Benjamin Constant de Rebecque was a Swiss-born French nobleman, thinker, writer and politician.-Biography:...
, Guizot, and Tocqueville. Consistent with his conventionalist epistemology, Rougier believed that political power rests not upon eternally valid claims, but upon conventions that he called mystiques. The only possible reason to prefer one political system over another, he believed, depends not on eternal truths but on purely pragmatic grounds. In other words, political systems should be chosen not based on how "true" they are, but rather on how well they work.
After visiting the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
in 1932 on a visit sponsored by France's Ministry of Education, Rougier became convinced that planned economies
Planned economy
A planned economy is an economic system in which decisions regarding production and investment are embodied in a plan formulated by a central authority, usually by a government agency...
do not work as well as market economies
Market economy
A market economy is an economy in which the prices of goods and services are determined in a free price system. This is often contrasted with a state-directed or planned economy. Market economies can range from hypothetically pure laissez-faire variants to an assortment of real-world mixed...
. This conviction led him to participate in the organization of the first neoliberal
Neoliberalism
Neoliberalism is a market-driven approach to economic and social policy based on neoclassical theories of economics that emphasizes the efficiency of private enterprise, liberalized trade and relatively open markets, and therefore seeks to maximize the role of the private sector in determining the...
organization of the twentieth century, the Colloque Walter Lippmann
Colloque Walter Lippmann
The Colloque Walter Lippmann was a meeting of intellectuals organized in Paris in August 1938 by French philosopher Louis Rougier. After the 1920s and 1930s saw a decline in the interest for classical liberalism the aim was to construct a new Liberalism as a rejection of collectivism, socialism and...
, in 1938. During the same year, Rougier helped to found the Centre international d'études pour la rénovation du libéralisme. The political network established by these two groups eventually led to the 1947 foundation of the famous Mont Pelerin Society
Mont Pelerin Society
The Mont Pelerin Society is an international organization composed of economists , philosophers, historians, intellectuals, business leaders, and others who favour classical liberalism...
, to which Rougier was elected in the 1960s through the personal backing of Friedrich von Hayek
Friedrich Hayek
Friedrich August Hayek CH , born in Austria-Hungary as Friedrich August von Hayek, was an economist and philosopher best known for his defense of classical liberalism and free-market capitalism against socialist and collectivist thought...
.
Rougier, as one of the founding fathers of neoliberalism
Neoliberalism
Neoliberalism is a market-driven approach to economic and social policy based on neoclassical theories of economics that emphasizes the efficiency of private enterprise, liberalized trade and relatively open markets, and therefore seeks to maximize the role of the private sector in determining the...
, would no doubt have been admitted to the first meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society had it not been for a second political engagement that proved disastrous to his career and reputation: his activities on behalf of the Vichy
Vichy France
Vichy France, Vichy Regime, or Vichy Government, are common terms used to describe the government of France that collaborated with the Axis powers from July 1940 to August 1944. This government succeeded the Third Republic and preceded the Provisional Government of the French Republic...
regime in France during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. In October 1940, Philippe Pétain
Philippe Pétain
Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Joseph Pétain , generally known as Philippe Pétain or Marshal Pétain , was a French general who reached the distinction of Marshal of France, and was later Chief of State of Vichy France , from 1940 to 1944...
sent Rougier on a secret mission to the British government in London, where he met with Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
between the 21st and the 25th. Rougier later claimed in several published works that these meetings resulted in an agreement between Vichy and Churchill that he called the "Pétain-Churchill accords", an allegation that the British government later denied in an official White Paper
White paper
A white paper is an authoritative report or guide that helps solve a problem. White papers are used to educate readers and help people make decisions, and are often requested and used in politics, policy, business, and technical fields. In commercial use, the term has also come to refer to...
. Although these activities and publications eventually led to Rougier's dismissal in 1948 from his teaching position at the University of Besançon, Rougier continued to be active throughout the 1950s in organizations that defended Pétain. He also published works denouncing the épuration
Épuration légale
The Épuration légale was the wave of official trials that followed the Liberation of France and the fall of the Vichy Regime...
(the French equivalent of denazification
Denazification
Denazification was an Allied initiative to rid German and Austrian society, culture, press, economy, judiciary, and politics of any remnants of the National Socialist ideology. It was carried out specifically by removing those involved from positions of influence and by disbanding or rendering...
that was carried out on formerly Vichy territory by the Allies after the war) as illegal and totalitarian. Finally, Rougier was active in an effort that petitioned the United Nations in 1951, alleging that the Allies had committed human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
violations and war crimes during the Libération.
During the 1970s, Rougier formed a second controversial political alliance: with the Nouvelle Droite
Nouvelle Droite
Nouvelle Droite is a school of political thought founded largely on the works of Alain de Benoist and GRECE .-Etymology and history:...
of the French writer Alain de Benoist
Alain de Benoist
Alain de Benoist is a French academic, philosopher, a founder of the Nouvelle Droite and head of the French think tank GRECE. Benoist is a critic of liberalism, free markets and egalitarianism.-Biography:...
. Rougier's long-standing opposition to Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
, together with his conviction that "the West" possesses a pragmatically superior mentalité to those of other cultures, aligned closely with the views of this movement. Benoist reissued and wrote prefaces to several of Rougier's earlier works, and in 1974 Benoist's think tank GRECE
Groupement de recherche et d'études pour la civilisation européenne
The Groupement de recherche et d'études pour la civilisation européenne , also known by its French acronym GRECE is an ethnonationalist think-tank, founded in 1968 by the journalist and writer Alain de Benoist.GRECE distinguishes itself from other traditionalist conservative organizations in...
published an entirely new book by Rougier: Le conflit du Christianisme primitif et de la civilisation antique.
Selected works
- 1919. La matérialisation de l'énergie: essai sur la théorie de la relativité et sur la théorie des quanta. Paris: Gauthier-Villars. English translation: 1921. Philosophy and the new physics; an essay on the relativity theory and the theory of quanta. London: Routledge.
- 1920. La philosophie géométrique de Henri Poincaré. Paris: F. Alcan.
- 1920. Les paralogismes du rationalisme: essai sur la théorie de la connaissance. Paris: F. Alcan.
- 1921. En marge de Curie, de Carnot et d'Einstein: études de philosophie scientifique. Paris: Chiron.
- 1921. La structure des théories déductives; théorie nouvelle de la déduction. Paris: F. Alcan.
- 1924. La scolastique et le thomisme. Paris: Gauthier-Villars.
- 1929. La mystique démocratique, ses origines, ses illusions. Paris: E. Flammarion.
- 1933. L'origine astronomique de la croyance pythagoricienne en l'immortalité céleste des âmes. Cairo: L'institut français d'archéologie orientale.
- 1938. Les mystiques économiques; comment l'on passe des démocraties libérales aux états totalitaires. Paris: Librairie de Médicis.
- 1945. Les accords Pétain, Churchill: historie d'une mission secrète. Montréal: Beauchemin.
- 1945. Créance morale de la France. Montréal: L. Parizeau.
- 1947. La France jacobine. Bruxelles: La Diffusion du livre.
- 1947. La défaite des vainqueurs. Bruxelles: La Diffusion du livre.
- 1947. La France en marbre blanc: ce que le monde doit à la France. Genève: Bibliothèque du Cheval ailé.
- 1948. De Gaulle contre De Gaulle. Paris: Éditions du Triolet.
- 1954. Les accord secrets franco-britanniques de l'automne 1940; histoire et imposture. Paris: Grasset.
- 1955. Traité de la connaissance. Paris: Gauthier-Villars.
- 1957. L'épuration. Paris: Les Sept couleurs.
- 1959. La religion astrale des Pythagoriciens. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
- 1960. La métaphysique et le langage. Paris: Flammarion.
- 1966. Histoire d'une faillite philosophique: la Scolastique. Paris: J.-J. Pauvert.
- 1969. Le Génie de l'Occident: essai sur la formation d'une mentalité. Paris: R. Laffont. English translation: 1971. The genius of the West. Los Angeles: Nash.
- 1972. La genèse des dogmes chrétiens. Paris: A. Michel.
- 1980. Astronomie et religion en Occident. Paris: Presses universitaires de France.