Georges Dumas

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File:Georges Dumas.jpg
Photograph of Georges Dumas in 1940

Georges-Alphonse Dumas (6 March 1866 – 12 February 1946) was a French physician and psychologist.

Biography

Georges Dumas was born in Lédignan. Dumas was a student at the Lycée de Nîmes between 1878 and 1884, then a student in a preparatory class at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris between 1884 and 1886. He then entered the École normale supérieure in the class of 1886–1889, alongside Romain Rolland and Georges Pagès. He obtained the agrégation in philosophy in 1889. Between 1889 and 1896, he studied under Théodule Ribot at the Collège de France. He became a doctor of medicine in 1894 with a thesis on Les États intellectuels de la Mélancolie. At the École de médecine, he became friends with Pierre Janet, whom he had known as a professor at the École normale.

He held the position of head of the psychology laboratory at the mental illness clinic of the Faculty of Medicine of Paris at the Sainte-Anne asylum from 1897, in parallel with his position as professor of philosophy at the Chaptal College between 1894 and 1902.

He also became a doctor of letters in 1900 with a main thesis on Sadness and Joy and a complementary thesis on Auguste Comte, critic of the psychology of his time. In 1902, succeeding Pierre Janet, he was appointed lecturer in experimental psychology at the Faculty of Letters in Paris.

The following year, in 1903, he founded with Pierre Janet the Journal de psychologie normale et pathologique. Between 1912 and 1937, he held the chair of experimental psychology at the Sorbonne, and was also professor of pathological psychology at the Institute of Psychology of the University of Paris between 1921 and 1937.

He has been a member of the Société médico-psychologique since 1925 and was its president for the year 1933. He was also a member of the Academy of Medicine since 1926 and a member of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences since 1932. He was named Knight of the Legion of Honor in 1917, then Officer and Commander thereafter.

He died of broncho-pneumonia on February 12, 1946 in his home town of Lédignan.

Research

He presented himself as the faithful disciple of Théodule Ribot to whom he dedicated all his books. Dumas was called a "ferryman of a new generation of psychologists of the inter-war period". His favorite field was that of emotions. His lessons at the Sainte-Anne Hospital had a large audience. Many students and listeners became famous: Georges Poyer, André Ombredane, Jean Delay, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Jacques Lacan, Daniel Lagache, Paul Nizan, Raymond Aron, Jean-Paul Sartre, Georges Canguilhem...

His main work is The Treatise of Psychology (1923–1924; Le Traité de Psychologie). He wrote many articles for the work and oversaw its publication in two volumes. Many of the leading French psychologists of the time contributed to the work. A new completed edition (The New Treatise of Psychology; Le Nouveau traité de psychologie) was published between 1930 and 1949 in 10 volumes.

His missions and foundations in South America to make French thought and science known, to create high schools and research institutes and to organize exchanges of teachers and students were numerous.

Works

  • Léon Tolstoï et la philosophie de l’amour (1893)
  • Les États intellectuels dans la mélancolie (1894).
  • Les Émotions by Friedrich Albert Lange (1896; translation with preface)
  • La Tristesse et la Joie (1900)
  • Auguste Comte (1900)
  • La Théorie de l’émotion by William James (1902; translation with preface)
  • Psychologie de deux messies positivistes: Auguste Comte et Saint-Simon (1905)
  • Le Sourire et l’expression des émotions (1906)
  • Névroses et psychoses de guerre chez les Austro-Allemands (1918; with Henri Aimé)
  • Troubles mentaux et troubles nerveux de guerre (1919)
  • Introduction à la psychologie (1936)
  • Les Fonctions systématisées de la vie affective et de la vie active (1939)
  • Le Surnaturel et les Dieux d'après les Maladies Mentales. Essai de théogénie pathologique (1946)
  • La Vie affective, Physiologie - Psychologie - Socialisation (1948)

External links