Life
De Crousaz was born in Lausanne. He was a many-sided man, whose numerous works on many subjects had a great vogue in their day, but are now forgotten. He has been described as an initiateur plutôt qu'un créateur (an initiator rather than a creator), chiefly because he introduced the philosophy of Descartes to Lausanne in opposition to the reigning Aristotelianism, and also as a Calvinist pendant (for he was a pastor) of the French abbés of the 18th century.
He studied in Geneva, Leiden, and Paris, before becoming professor of philosophy and mathematics at the academy of Lausanne in 1700. He was rector of the academy four times before 1724, when theological disputes led him to accept a chair of philosophy and mathematics at Gröningen. In 1726 he was appointed governor to the young prince Frederick of Hesse-Kassel (or Hesse-Cassel), and in 1735 returned to Lausanne with a good pension. In 1737 he was reinstated in his old chair, which he retained to his death.
Edward Gibbon, describing his first stay at Lausanne (1752–1755), writes in his autobiography, "The logic of de Crousaz had prepared me to engage with his master Locke and his antagonist Bayle."
Read more about this topic: Jean-Pierre De Crousaz
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“The way to go to the circus, however, is with someone who has seen perhaps one theatrical performance before in his life and that in the High School hall.... The scales of sophistication are struck from your eyes and you see in the circus a gathering of men and women who are able to do things as a matter of course which you couldn’t do if your life depended on it.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)
“There is no intrinsic worth in money but what is alterable with the times, and whether a guinea goes for twenty pounds or for a shilling, it is ... the labour of the poor and not the high and low value that is set on gold or silver, which all the comforts of life must arise from.”
—Bernard Mandeville (1670–1733)
“What quarrel, what harshness, what unbelief in each other can subsist in the presence of a great calamity, when all the artificial vesture of our life is gone, and we are all one with each other in primitive mortal needs?”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)