Joseph Saurin was educated at home, being brought up a Calvinist by his father who was a Calvinist minister. Joseph entered the Calvinist ministry in 1684 but was soon in trouble for his outspoken views. He tried to escape his troubles by going to Switzerland where he became a minister at Bercher, Yverdon. However he continued to be too outspoken for his own good and, in 1685, refused despite strong pressure being exerted on him, to sign the Consensus of Geneva. In 1690, unhappy with the Calvinist ways, he became a Roman Catholic.
He went to Paris in 1690 and began to learn and to teach mathematics. He became friends with de L'Hôpital, Malebranche and Varignon but, by 1702, he was in dispute with Rolle over the calculus. He appealed to the Académie Royale des Sciences but they had no wish to come out against Rolle who was a member. Perhaps to be diplomatic, Saurin was elected to the Académie Royale des Sciences in 1707.
He spent several months in jail for writing libellous poems about Rousseau. Then he retired to spend the rest of his life working on mathematics.
Saurin made contributions to the calculus, wrote on Jacob Bernoulli's problem of quickest descent and Huygens' theory of the pendulum.