André Lalande, the French philosopher, was born in Dijon and entered the École Normale Supérieure in 1885. He took his doctorate in 1899 and taught in lycées until he was appointed first to a lectureship and then, in 1904, to a chair of philosophy at the University of Paris.

Lalande was a rationalist whose whole life was devoted to the cause of international communication and the dissemination of knowledge. His constant preoccupation after 1902 was the launching, and subsequent reediting, of the Vocabulaire technique et critique de la philosophie, which aimed at the concise definition and standardization of philosophical terminology. His own philosophical work corresponds to this recognition and promotion of an interdependent humanity.

In his thesis of 1899, L'idée directrice de la dissolution opposée à celle de l'évolution, Lalande challenged Herbert Spencer's thesis that progress is evolutionary and differentiating, and...