1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Janet, Paul

JANET, PAUL (1823–1899), French philosophical writer, was born in Paris on the 30th of April 1823. He was professor of moral philosophy at Bourges (1845–1848) and Strassburg (1848–1857), and of logic at the lycée Louis-le-Grand, Paris (1857–1864). In 1864 he was appointed to the chair of philosophy at the Sorbonne, and elected a member of the academy of the moral and political sciences. He wrote a large number of books and articles upon philosophy, politics and ethics, on idealistic lines: La Famille, Histoire de la philosophie dans l’antiquité et dans le temps moderne, Histoire de la science politique, Philosophie de la Révolution Française, &c. They are not characterized by much originality of thought. In philosophy he was a follower of Victor Cousin, and through him of Hegel. His principal work in this line, Théorie de la morale, is little more than a somewhat patronizing reproduction of Kant. He died in October 1899.