René-Joseph de Tournemine

{{Short description|French Jesuit theologian and philosopher}}

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René-Joseph de Tournemine {{post-nominals|post-noms=S.J.}} ({{IPA|fr|ʁəne ʒozɛf də tuʁnəmin}}; 26 April 1661, Rennes – 16 May 1739) was a French Jesuit theologian and philosopher. He founded the Mémoires de Trévoux, the Jesuit learned journal published from 1701 to 1767,http://pagesperso-orange.fr/astrid01/journal_1.htm, in French and assailed Nicolas Malebranche with the charges of atheism and Spinozism.[http://www.history-of-philosophy.com/malebranche.htm Malebranche]Jonathan Israel, The Radical Enlightenment (2001), p. 42.

His Réflexions sur l'athéisme originated as a preface to the Traité de l'existence de Dieu (1713) by Fénelon, and was an effective direct attack on Spinoza; it argued that 'Spinozism' wasn't practically tenable.Israel, p. 299.

A debate with Leibniz on the mind-body problemBrandon Look, Leibniz and the "Vinculum Substantiale" (1999), pp. 51-63. was prominent in the period.R. S. Woolhouse, Richard Francks, Leibniz's 'New System' and Associated Contemporary Texts (1997), Chapter 10.

Tournemine taught the young Voltaire, and became his friend. In correspondence from 1735, however, Voltaire was critical of the Jesuit reception of Newton and Locke.John W. Yolton, Locke and French Materialism (1991), pp. 46-51.