HALÉVY, ÉLIE

HALÉVY, ÉLIE (1870–1937), French philosopher and historian. He was the son of Ludovic and brother of Daniel (see Halévy family). He was raised as a Protestant (his mother's religion). He became professor at the Ecole libre des Sciences politiques where he taught English history and European socialism. A Dreyfusard and a secular rationalist, he was a founder of the Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale and the Société française de Philosophie. His first work, La Théorie platonicienne des sciences (1896), dealt with Plato's negative dialectic as a way to positive construction. He applied this theory in a basic study of the Benthamite movement, La formation du radicalisme philosophique, 3 vols. (1901–04; The Growth of Philosophic Radicalism, 1928). His important Histoire du peuple anglais au XIXe siècle, 5 vols. (1912–32; A History of the English People in the 19th Century, 1924–34) covering the periods 1815–41, and 1895–1914 (he died before completing the rest), was an anti-Marxist interpretation of English history, stressing the role of religious factors in English political stability. He also wrote The World Crisis of 1914–18 (1930), L'ère des tyrannies (1938) against fascism and communism, and Histoire du socialisme européen (1948; from his notes). Halévy favored transforming collective belief through compromise rather than fanaticism as the means to international peace. At the end of his life he was pessimistic, convinced that war was inevitable and that the fascist and communist tyrannies would be perpetuated. He played an important role in English as well as in French intellectual life.   -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Brunschvicg, in: Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale, 44 (1937), 679–91; C.C. Gillispie, Journal of Modern History, 22 (1950), 232–49; M. Richter, International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 6 (1968), 307–10. (Richard H. Popkin)