Antoine Le Grand

French Recollect and Cartesian philosopher

Antoine Le Grand (1629 in Douai1699 in London) was a French Recollect and Cartesian philosopher.

Born in Douai, Spanish Netherlands, he was attached at an early age to the English community of St. Bonaventure's convent there, and became a Franciscan Recollect friar, and taught philosophy and divinity. Sent on the English mission, he resided for many years in Oxfordshire, and in 1695 he was tutor in the family of Henry Fermor of Tusmore. His advocacy of Cartesianism met with strong resistance from Samuel Parker, who would become bishop of Oxford. Towards the close of his life he engaged in sharp controversies on metaphysical topics with John Sergeant, a secular priest. At the twenty third chapter of his order, assembled in London on 9 July 1693, he was elected provincial, and he held that office till his death on 9 August 1699. Le Grand argued against animal rights and authored Dissertatio de carentia sensus et cognitionis in brutis (On the Lack of Sense and Cognition in Brutes) in 1675 which defends the Cartesian idea that animals are mere machines. Le Grand authored An Entire Body of Philosophy in 1694 which reduced Cartesianism to a "scholastic" scheme. It has been described as the last major exposition of Cartesianism which heralded the close of the Cartesian era. He lived a studious and retired life. He is noted for the effort he made to render the approach of Descartes more apparently scholastic, to improve its reception with traditionalists.