Of Habit

Of Habit (1838) by French philosopher Félix Ravaisson (1813–1900) is the dissertation (doctorat ès lettres) he defended in Paris on December 26, 1838. In it he continues exploring the problem of habit, first raised in the first volume of Essay on Aristotle’s Metaphysics (1837).

Ravaisson implicitly argues with the highly influential French philosopher Victor Cousin (1792–1867) about the method by which one might approach the search for the vraie cause — the true cause of being. Cousin charts a path toward this cause through the human self, moving from the smaller toward the greater. Ravaisson, however, believed this to be a false path. For him, the human self already contains the true cause within it, though deeply hidden inside human existence. One must therefore descend into these dark depths. The entire work unfolds like a journey into the human abyss, where at the very bottom Ravaisson discovers, with habit as his guide, the true source of light — grace, which lies at the foundation of all things.