Portrait of Henri Poincaré as a Young Philosopher: The Formative Years (1860-1873)
Résumé
The question of the origins of Henri Poincaré’s philosophy gave rise to numerous studies during the last decades. This article proposes to follow a track that has not been explored in detail so far: the aim is to follow Poincaré during his training years in high school in Nancy until he entered the École Polytechnique in 1873. Different sources, old or recent, offer the possibility of reconstructing his school career. They also give some clues about his first contacts with the field of philosophy, through his readings, his family and social relationships or the curricula then in effect in public education. To carry out this mainly biographical program, we will first give an account of his family background and explore the characters of his social and cultural world in a small university town. In a second step, we will study in detail the functioning of the high school and of the faculties of Nancy in the 1860s. Finally, we will propose different trails concerning the construction of his philosophical horizon during his youth.