View source for Jean-Pierre de Crousaz

{{Infobox philosopher
 | image            = Jean-Pierre de Crousaz.jpg
 | caption          = Anonymous portrait (1729)
 | birth_date       = {{birth date|1663|4|13|df=y}}
 | birth_place      = Lausanne
 | death_date       = {{death date and age|1750|3|22|1663|4|13|df=y}}
 | death_place      = Lausanne
 | nationality      = [[Swiss people|Swiss]]
 | influences       = Descartes, Calvin
 | influenced       = Edward Gibbon
}}
'''Jean-Pierre de Crousaz''' (13 April 1663{{snd}}22 March 1750) was a [[Swiss people|Swiss]] [[theology|theologian]] and [[philosopher]]. He is now remembered more for his letters of commentary than his formal works.

==Life==
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De Crousaz was born in [[Lausanne]], Switzerland. He was a many-sided man, whose numerous works on many subjects had a great vogue in their day, but are now largely forgotten. He has been described{{bywhom|date=July 2023}} as an ''initiateur plutôt qu'un créateur'' (an initiator rather than a creator), chiefly because he introduced the philosophy of [[René Descartes|Descartes]] to Lausanne in opposition to the reigning [[Aristotle|Aristotelianism]], and also as a [[Calvinism|Calvinist]] pedant (for he was a pastor) of the French abbés of the 18th century.{{sfn|Coolidge|1911|p=512}}

He studied in [[Geneva]], [[Leiden]], and [[Paris]], before becoming professor of philosophy and mathematics at the [[University of Lausanne|academy of Lausanne]] in 1700. He was rector of the academy four times before 1724, when theological disputes led him to accept a chair of philosophy and mathematics at [[Groningen (city)|Gröningen]]. In 1726 he was appointed governor to the young prince [[Frederick II, Landgrave of Hesse|Frederick of Hesse-Kassel]] (or Hesse-Cassel), and in 1735 returned to Lausanne with a good pension. In 1737, he was reinstated in his old chair, which he retained to his death.{{sfn|Coolidge|1911|p=512}}

[[Edward Gibbon]], describing his first stay at Lausanne (1752–1755), writes in [[Memoirs of My Life and Writings|his autobiography]], "The logic of de Crousaz had prepared me to engage with his master [[John Locke|Locke]] and his antagonist [[Pierre Bayle|Bayle]]".{{sfn|Coolidge|1911|p=512}}

==Works==
The most important of his works are:
* ''Nouvel Essai de logique'' (1712)
* ''Géométrie des lignes et des surfaces rectilignes et circulaires'' (1712)
* ''Traité du beau'' (1714)
* ''Examen du traité de la liberté de penser d'Antoine'', Collins (1718)
* ''De l'éducation des enfants'' (1722, dedicated to the [[Caroline of Ansbach|then Princess of Wales]])
* ''Examen du pyrrhonisme ancien et moderne'' (1733, an attack chiefly on Bayle)
* ''Examen de l'essai de M. Pope sur l'homme'' (1737, an attack on the [[Gottfried Leibniz|Leibnitzian]] theory of [[Alexander Pope|Pope's]] poem ''[[Essay on Man]]'')
* ''Logique'' (6 vols., 1741)
* ''De l'ésprit humain'' (1741)
* ''Réflexions sur l'ouvrage intitulé: La Belle Wolfienne'' (1743){{sfn|Coolidge|1911|p=512}}

==Notes==
{{reflist}}

==References==

* {{EB1911|wstitle=Crousaz, Jean Pierre de|volume=7|last= Coolidge |first= William Augustus Brevoort |author-link= W. A. B. Coolidge|page=512}}

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{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2017}}

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[[Category:1663 births]]
[[Category:1750 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Lausanne]]
[[Category:18th-century Swiss philosophers]]
[[Category:French male non-fiction writers]]