Charles Secrétan
Template:Short description Template:Not to be confused Template:Infobox person Charles Secrétan<ref group="Note">Initally spelled Secretan (without acute accent) in the manner of the family members who preceded him; Secrétan would generally use the accented form from 1849 onward, but is attested to have signed a letter Secrétan as early as June 21, 1838.Template:R</ref> (January 19, 1815 – January 21, 1895) was a Swiss academic philosopher, author of works about society and politics, and a lawyer.Template:R
He was born and educated in Lausanne, and earned a law degree at the Academy there.Template:R In 1835 he briefly assisted Alexandre Vinet in Basel,Template:R but soon went to Munich to study under Friedrich von Schelling.Template:R By 1838 he returned to Switzerland to practice law.Template:R
In 1837 or 1838 he founded and briefly edited the Template:Ill, an intellectual magazine.Template:R By 1841 he had attained a professorship and taught philosophy and its history at the Academy of Lausanne, but on December 2, 1846 he and 7 other professors were dismissed by the radical-led cantonal government that had Template:Ill.Template:R<ref group="Note">Days later, the students of the Academy held a banquet in honour of the dismissed professors, at which Secrétan offered remarks.Template:R</ref> He moved to Paris and then Neuchâtel where he taught at the gymnasium from about 1851–1866.Template:R In 1866, he resumed his prior status at the Academy of Lausanne, and added a second professorship in natural law in 1874; he would hold both until his death.Template:R In 1877, after a lecture series in Montauban, he earned international recognition.Template:R
His first major work was Template:Lang (Philosophy of Liberty) in 1849, and he developed his social and political philosophy in Template:Lang (Rights of the Woman, 1885) and Template:Lang (My Utopia, 1892).Template:R Politically, he opposed collectivism and rejected state-controlled apportionment of work as tantamount to tyranny.Template:R In concert with Vinet, he opposed the populist radicals who pressed for the submission of the church to the state, but in so doing, allied himself with the aristocracy.Template:R In his writings, he explored the relationship between Christian religious philosophy and metaphysics.Template:R
In later life, he became a member of the French Template:Lang (1883), and a Template:Lang of the French legion of honour.Template:R He was memorialized in a 1917 issue of Template:Lang—ostensibly on the centenary of his birth, though actually somewhat laterTemplate:R—wherein 6 articles were published concerning his life and philosophy,Template:R his socioeconomic observations,Template:R his morality,Template:R his metaphysics,Template:R his theology,Template:R and his works (435 items catalogued).Template:R
Template:Ill included his parents Samuel Secrétan and Sophie Dufour, and brother Edouard Secrétan (1813–1870).Template:R He was married to Marie Muller.Template:R
Works
- Template:Lang (1840)Template:R
- Template:Lang (1849)Template:R
- Template:Lang (1857)Template:R
- Template:Lang (1863)Template:R
- Template:Lang (1877)Template:R
- Template:Lang (1883)Template:R
- Template:Lang (1885)Template:R
- Template:Lang (1887)Template:R
- Template:Lang (1889)Template:R
- Template:Lang (1890)Template:R
- Template:Lang (1892)Template:R