Cousin, Victor

From Encyclopediak

Cousin, Koo"za1m, Victor 1792-1867, a French founder of an eclectic School of Philosophy. When 23 he became deputy professor of philosophy at the Sorbonne, after two years visited Germany, acquainted himself with German idealistic philosophy and four years later resumed teaching. Subsequently he became a peer, and in 1840 was appointed minister of public instruction, in which capacity he greatly influenced primary education. Cousin is remembered for the felicity with which he expressed the philosophy of predecessors and contemporaries and for a translation of Plato. His historical works are mainly 17th century biographies.