CONSTRUCTION ET EXPÉRIMENTATION D'UNE MÉTHODE HISTORIQUE : LE NOUVEAU-MONDE SELON VOLNEY. (French)

Construction and Experimentation of a Historical Method : the New World according to Volney. (English)

Volney, enriched by the diversity of the work of the Ideologues he shared and nourished, actively participated through his post at the Institut in the birth of the moral and political sciences. This work containing ethno- anthropological, observations, debates about the physical relationship of man to his environment, and measurements of social, political, and cultural differences among peoples, led to the production of inventories and statistics. Volney stressed the importance of travel to which he linked his study of history. Tested in Egypt and Syria at the beginning of the 1780s, further developed at the Ecole Normale, Volney sought to pursue this study in the United States between 1795 and 1798. There he found material for the comparison of two revolutions, two Republics, to contemplate their fragilities. But here, too, the limitation of his methodology appeared, most conspicuously in his encounters, circumscribed and hesitant, with Native Americans ; this particular study deepened his thinking, now more pessimistic, about process of civilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Volney (1757-1820), riche de la diversité des travaux des Idéologues qu'il partage et nourrit, de sa place à l'Institut, participe activement à la naissance des sciences morales et politiques. Elles reposent sur des observations ethno-anthropologiques, des débats sur le rapport physique de l'homme à son milieu, sur la mesure des différences sociales, politiques et culturelles des peuples de la terre, donnant lieu à inventaires et statistiques. Volney insiste sur l'importance du voyage, auquel il lie sa pédagogie de l'histoire. Expérimentée en Égypte et en Syrie au début des années 1780, développée à l'École normale, il va tenter de la transporter de 1795 à 1798 aux États-Unis. Il y trouve matière à comparer deux révolutions, deux républiques, à réfléchir à leurs fragilités. Mais apparaissent aussi les limites de sa méthode dans sa rencontre circonscrite et apeurée avec les Amérindiens, de l'étude desquels il prétend poursuivre son raisonnement, désormais pessimiste, sur les processus de civilisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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