Critique of Comparative Reason: The Method of Paul Masson-Oursel and the Project of Intercultural Philosophy

The article is dedicated to the intellectual legacy of the French orientalist-Indologist Paul Masson-Oursel (1882–1956), one of the founders of philosophical comparativism, which largely anticipated modern intercultural philosophy. Numerous aspects of his philosophical approach align him with contemporary intercultural philosophy. Masson-Oursel justified the necessity of including non-European traditions of thought (Indian, Chinese) in the history of philosophy on equal grounds with European philosophical thought. The article presents the scholar's intellectual biography and analyzes his connections with academic scholars (Henri Bergson, Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, Émile Durkheim, Marcel Mauss, Sylvain Lévy) and with representatives of the non-academic community of Western Europe in the first half of the 20th century (Mircea Eliade, René Guénon). Special attention is given to the analysis of the institutional obstacles encountered by his project of comparative philosophy. The work is based on a historical-philosophical analysis of Masson-Oursel's works, using methods of intellectual history and archival research. Particular emphasis is placed on reconstructing two key methodological tools: "positive analogy," aimed at identifying structurally-functional equivalents in different traditions, and "positive environment," which requires contextual analysis of philosophical ideas. A key source, newly introduced into academic discourse, is an archival letter from Masson-Oursel dated 1945, which vividly demonstrates the institutional resistance to the comparative method in the first half of the 20th century. Based on this, the thesis is substantiated that Masson-Oursel's project, despite its positivist rhetoric and historical limitations, contained a radical critical potential. His program aimed not only at finding universal patterns in the development of thought but also at reconsidering familiar Western categories (such as the opposition between philosophy and religion) through immersion in other cultural contexts. It is shown that this project anticipated key arguments of postcolonial studies and questions of contemporary intercultural philosophy, offering an original combination of positivism with attention to metaphysical experience. An analysis of the reception of his fundamental monograph in the academic community of the 1920s reveals discussions characteristic of that era about the limits of the comparative method. The results of the study are significant for understanding the genealogy of intercultural philosophy and are relevant in the context of contemporary discussions on the decolonization of philosophical knowledge and the overcoming of intellectual provincialism.

Paul Masson-Oursel, comparative philosophy, intercultural philosophy, non-western philosophies, comparative methology, French indology, intellectual history, archival research, Eurocentrism, decolonization of knowledge