Abel Rey first attended college in Marseilles, then at the
Lycée Louis-le-Grand. He then studied philosophy under
Émile Boutroux, and mathematics at Sorbonne, with
Émile Picard and
Paul Tannery as professors. After his bachelor in sciences, he succeeded a competition for professorship in philosophy. Like his friends
Marcel Mauss and
François Simiand, Rey was influenced by Lévy-Brühl's sociology and the planist views of
Hubert Lagardelle. Abel Rey then taught in a number of provincial colleges while writing his PhD thesis under the guidance of
Émile Boutroux. This seminal work was dedicated to the confluent concepts of energy in modern physics. Abel Rey succeeded
Gaston Milhaud as professor of the
history of philosophy in its relation to science at the
Sorbonne, and established the Institut d'histoire des sciences et des techniques to encourage cooperation between the
sciences and
humanities. It has been argued that Rey influenced
Philipp Frank and the formation of the
Vienna Circle. Rey's
history of science was wide, including sciences from
physics to
sociology, and deep, ranging from antiquity to the present; moreover, it included the study of culture's influence on the sciences of the time. ==Works==