[3][2][4] Ravaisson's philosophy is in the tradition of French Spiritualism, which was initiated by Pierre Maine de Biran (1766–1824) with the essay "The Influence of Habit on the Faculty of Thinking" (1802).

[5] His most well known and influential successor was Henri Bergson, with whom the tradition can be seen to end during the 1930s;[1] although the 'lineage' of this 'philosophy of life' can be seen to return in the late twentieth century with Gilles Deleuze.

[6] In 1838 he was employed as the principle private secretary to the minister of public instruction, going on to secure high-ranking positions such as inspector general of libraries, and then the curator of classical antiquities at the Louvre.

After a successful course of study at the Collège Rollin, he went to Munich in autumn 1839, where he attended the lectures of Schelling, and took his degree in philosophy in 1836.

2] (1837 and 1846); De l'habitude (On Habit, 1838); and Rapport sur la philosophie en France au XIXeme siècle (1867).