Jean-Robert Chouet

Jean-Robert Chouet
Portrait by Robert Gardelle, ca. 1715. Oil on canvas, from the collection of the Bibliothèque de Genève.
Born	30 September 1642 Geneva, Republic of Geneva
Died	17 September 1731 Geneva
Nationality	Genevan
Alma mater	University of Geneva
Scientific career
Fields	physics
Institutions	Academy of Saumur, University of Geneva
Academic advisors	Caspar Wyss, David Derodon
Doctoral students	Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, Pierre Bayle, Jean Leclerc

Jean-Robert Chouet (30 September 1642 – 17 September 1731) was an early modern physicist and political leader in the Republic of Geneva. He is chiefly remembered for introducing Cartesianism to the Académie de Genève (now the University of Geneva).

Chouet studied philosophy at the Académie de Genève from 1658 to 1661. In 1659 he wrote a dissertation entitled De motu ("On motion"), supervised by Caspar Wyss. In that work he critiqued the Artistotelian concept of motion, while still also rejecting Cartesianism. He then traveled to Nîmes to study philosophy under David Derodon, a partisan of the atomism of Pierre Gassendi. Under Derodon, Chouet defended in 1662 a thesis containing an exposition of the system of Tycho Brahe. Chouet then returned to Geneva where he studied Calvinist theology in 1662–64, without much enthusiasm.

His father Pierre was a printer and librarian. His mother, Renée Tronchin, was the daughter of Théodore Tronchin (1582-1657) and sister of Louis Tronchin (1629-1705), both professors of theology. The Tronchins were one of the dominant families in the Council of Geneva and at the Académie. Chouet married first Marie Favre, the daughter of treasurer-general Jean-Jacques Favre. He later married Suzanne Rigot, daughter of councillor Ami Rigot and widow of draper Louis Mallet.^[1]

In 1664 he was appointed professor of philosophy at the Academy of Saumur, where the influence of René Descartes was strong. Chouet's teaching gradually became Cartesian and was enriched by experimental demonstrations. In 1669, at the behest of Louis Tronchin he was called back to Geneva as professor of philosophy at the Académie. There he taught the Cartesian system and treated numerous theoretical questions in theses prepared with his students. The content of these theses in physics was close to the Cartesian explanations found in such works as Jacques Rohault's Traité de Physique (1671).

In Geneva, Chouet carried out experiments and published results on the action of snake venom, on the variation in a barometer's reading associated with changes in elevation, on the operation of a siphon, and on magnets.^[1] He served as rector of the Académie de Genève from 1679 to 1681. Among Chouet's students were the astronomer and mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, as well as polygraphs Pierre Bayle and Jean Leclerc. Chouet's weekly experimental demonstrations attracted the interest of spectators from other Swiss cities.^[1]

Chouet was elected to the Republic of Geneva's Council of Two Hundred in 1677. In 1686 he resigned from his professorship at the Académie de Genève and took up a place in the Council of Twenty Five, a self-appointing executive body that exercised most of the actual power of government in the then-independent Geneva. Chouet was Secretary of State and Guardian of the Archives from 1689 to 1698. He served as Syndic in 1699, 1703 and 1707, and as First Syndic in 1711, 1715 and 1719. He also occupied the post of Scholarch from 1701 until 1727. He was among the patrician leaders who fought successfully against campaigns by Pierre Fatio and others to increase the powers of the elected Council of Two Hundred at the expense of the aristocratic Council of Twenty Five (the "Little Council").^[1]

Chouet played a key role in the educational reforms of the Académie de Genève, introduced in 1701 and 1704 by the initiative of Jean-Alphonse Turrettini. He modernized the instruction within the Académie and helped to enlarge and organize the Bibliothèque de Genève, opening its collection to the general public.^[1]

• Heyd, Michael (1983). Between orthodoxy and the Enlightenment: Jean-Robert Chouet and the introduction of Cartesian science in the Academy of Geneva. Boston, MA: Kluwer. ISBN 978-9-024-72508-3. OCLC 884262270.
• Santschi, Catherine (2005), "Chouet, Jean-Robert", Dictionnaire historique de la Suisse, Hauterive: Editions Gilles Attinger (in French)