The French philosopher, sociologist, and anthropologist Lucien Lévy-Bruhl (1857-1939) concerned himself primarily with the nonrational belief systems of primitive man.

Lucien Lévy-Bruhl was born in Paris on April 10, 1857. He attended the Lycée Charlemagne, pursuing studies in music, philosophy, and natural science, and graduated from the École Normale Supérieure in philosophy in 1879. He taught philosophy at Poitiers and Amiens before he attended the University of Paris to pursue his doctorate in 1884. He taught in Paris until his appointment to the Sorbonne in 1896 as titular professor of the history of modern philosophy. Lévy-Bruhl's scholarly work began with a history of modern French philosophy in 1889; a book on German philosophy (since Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz) appeared in 1890, one on Jacobean philosophy in 1894, and one on Comtean philosophy in 1900. Ethics and Moral Science (1902) marked the beginning of Lévy-Bruhl's anthropological...