Edouard Louis Emmanuel Julien Le Roy

Édouard Louis Emmanuel Julien Le Roy (18 June 1870 – 10 November 1954) was a French philosopher and mathematician. He entered the École Normale Supérieure in 1892 and received his agrégation in mathematics in 1895. He earned a Doctor in Sciences in 1898, taught in high schools, and became a professor of mathematics at the Lycée Saint-Louis in Paris in 1909. Le Roy developed a strong interest in philosophy and metaphysics, becoming a close friend of Teilhard de Chardin and a devoted disciple of Henri Bergson. He succeeded Bergson at the College of France in 1922 and later at the Académie française in 1945. In 1919, he was elected to the Académie des Sciences morales et politiques. Le Roy's philosophical work focused on the relationship between science and morality. Alongside Henri Poincaré and Pierre Duhem, he advocated for a conventionalist thesis regarding the foundations of mathematics. Despite being a devout Catholic, he extended this conventionalist approach to revealed truths, asserting that it did not diminish their power. He favored instinctive faith, heart, and sentiment over abstract reasoning and speculative theology in matters of religious dogma. Influenced by Bergson, Le Roy explored mysticism in his later works. His conventionalist views, particularly concerning religious matters, led to his works being accused of modernism and placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum by the Holy See. Le Roy was married and had one child.