Regis, PIERRE SYLVAIN, b. at La Salvetat de Blanquefort, near Agen, in 1632; d. in Paris, in 1707. After his classical studies, he came to Paris, followed the lectures of Rohault at the Sorbonne and became a warm admirer and partisan of the philosophy of Descartes. He then, with great success, taught the principles of Cartesianism at Toulouse (1665), Aigues Mortes, Montpellier (1671), and Paris (1680). The prohibition issued about that time against the teaching of Cartesianism (cf. Cousin, “Fragments philosophiques”, 5th ed., Paris, 1866, III) put an end to his lectures. He was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences in 1699. His chief work is his “Cours entier de philosophic ou Systeme general selon les principes de Descartes” (3 vols, Paris, 1690), where he presented in a systematic way the principles of the Cartesian philosophy. Strongly opposed to Malebranche’s idealism, against which he wrote several articles in the “Journal des Savants” (1693 and 1694), Regis modified the system of Descartes on various points in the direction of empiricism. He denied that the human soul has innate and eternal ideas, maintained that all our ideas are modifications of the soul united to the body and that we can know our body and extension as immediately as our soul and thought. His book having been criticized by Huet and Duhamel, he then wrote his “Reponse au livre qui a pour titre Censura philosophiae Cartesianse” (Paris, 1691), and “Reponse aux reflexions critiques de M. Duhamel sur le systeme cartesian de M. Regis” (Paris, 1692). Among his other works we may also mention his “Usage de la raison et de la foi, ou l’accord de la raison et de la foi”, with a “Refutation de l’opinion de Spinoza, touchant rexistence et la nature de Dieu”.
GEORGE M. SAUVAGE