LAMY, FRANÇOIS

Benedictine philosopher; b. Montereau, Diocese of Chartres, 1636; d. Saint-Denis, April 4, 1711. At first a military man, Lamy in 1659 entered the order at Saint-Maur after a duel. He taught a Cartesian philosophy, although not without difficulties, at Saint-Maur (1670), Saint-Quentin, and Soissons (1672–73). He taught theology at Saint-Germain-des-Prés (1674–75) and then went to live in the solitude of Saint-Bale in the Diocese of Meaux, where he came into contact with bossuet. From 1687 to 1689 he was prior of Rebais. Because of his adherence to cartesianism he was prohibited from teaching by order of the king in 1689; he retired to Saint-Denis until his death. Although his works were generally of a polemic nature, he easily reconciled himself with his adversaries. He criticized P. nicole in Réflexions sur le Traité de la grâce générale (MS 3217, Archives of Port-Royal, Amersfoort, Netherlands). His discussions with Bossuet regarding the infinite satisfaction deriving from the sufferings of Christ may be found in Correspondance de Bossuet [ed. C. Urbain and L. Levesque (Paris 1909–23) 456]. He effected a reconciliation between Bossuet and N. malebranche after the appearance of the latter's Traité de la nature et de la grâce, which Lamy himself had attacked. Lamy's chief work is De la connaissance de soi-même. In it he interpreted several passages by Malebranche as endorsing quietism, which provoked Malebranche to reply, denying the assertion. Lamy advocated occasionalism against Leibniz's theory of a preestablished harmony and was answered by Leibniz (Philosophische Schriften, 4:572–595). He wrote polemics on monastic studies, against the Jesuits (Plaintes de l'apologiste des bénédictins, 1699), and on rhetoric (Réflexions sur l'éloquence, 1700; La rhétorique trahie par son apologiste, 1704). He wrote Réflexions sur le traité de la prière publique against J. J. Duguet (1649–1733). In his philosophical works Lamy was inspired largely by Malebranche, particularly in Les premiers éléments des sciences … (Paris 1706). He refuted Spinoza in Le nouvel athéisme renversé (Paris 1696). He wrote also L'incrédule amené à la religion par la raison (Paris 1710) and De la connaissance et de l'amour de Dieu (Paris 1712).

Bibliography: r. p. tassin, Histoire littéraire de la congrégation de Saint-Maur (Brussels 1770) 351–367. f. bouillier, Histoire de la philosophie cartésienne, 2 v. (3d ed. Paris 1868) 2: 363–373. g. rodis-lewis, Le Problème de l'inconscient et la cartésianisme (Paris 1950) 200–238. c. rosso, Enciclopedia Filosofica 2:1792. j. baudot, Dictionnaire de théologie catholique (Paris 1903–50) 8.2:2552–55. d. misonne, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner (Freiburg 1957–65) 6:770.

[g. rodis-lewis]