Alfred Fouillee

Alfred Jules Émile Fouillée (1838–1912) was a French philosopher known for his theories on the relationship between idea and action and for his contributions to moral psychology.

Biographical information: Born in La Pouëze (Maine-et-Loire) in 1838. He studied philosophy at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris and became a university professor.

Key concepts: He is famous for the notion of idées-forces ("ideas-forces"), by which he argued that an idea, once born in the mind, has a natural tendency to transform itself into action.

Important works: La liberté et le déterminisme (1872), L’évolutionnisme des idées-forces (1890), and La Psychologie des idées-forces (1893).

Influence: He was a thinker with a style that combined positivism with idealism, influencing both pedagogical thought and French moral philosophy of the late 19th century.

Personal life: Husband of the writer Thérèse Bentzon (Marie Thérèse Blanc) and father of Auguste Fouillée (under the pseudonym "André Maurois").

Death: Died in 1912, in Lyon.