Jean Beaufret (; 22 May 1907, in
Auzances7 August 1982, in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
) was a French
philosopher
A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...
and
Germanist
German studies is the field of humanities that researches, documents and disseminates German language and literature in both its historic and present forms. Academic departments of German studies often include classes on German culture, German hi ...
tremendously influential in the reception of
Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger (; ; 26 September 188926 May 1976) was a German philosopher who is best known for contributions to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. He is among the most important and influential philosophers of the 20th centur ...
's work in
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
.
Life
After graduating from the
École Normale Supérieure
École may refer to:
* an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée)
* École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France
* École, Savoi ...
and completing military service Beaufret passed his ''
agrégation
In France, the ''agrégation'' () is a competitive examination for civil service in the French public education system. Candidates for the examination, or ''agrégatifs'', become ''agrégés'' once they are admitted to the position of ''professe ...
de philosophie'' in 1933 and undertook a career teaching as a
lycée
In France, secondary education is in two stages:
* ''Collèges'' () cater for the first four years of secondary education from the ages of 11 to 15.
* ''Lycées'' () provide a three-year course of further secondary education for children between ...
philosophy instructor. His early philosophical interests were in 19th century
German philosophy
German philosophy, here taken to mean either (1) philosophy in the German language or (2) philosophy by Germans, has been extremely diverse, and central to both the analytic and continental traditions in philosophy for centuries, from Gottfried ...
, particularly
GWF Hegel,
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte (; ; 19 May 1762 – 29 January 1814) was a German philosopher who became a founding figure of the philosophical movement known as German idealism, which developed from the theoretical and ethical writings of Immanuel Kan ...
, and
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
. In the period before the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, he came to know
Paul Éluard
Paul Éluard (), born Eugène Émile Paul Grindel (; 14 December 1895 – 18 November 1952), was a French poet and one of the founders of the Surrealist movement.
In 1916, he chose the name Paul Éluard, a matronymic borrowed from his maternal ...
,
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Maurice Jean Jacques Merleau-Ponty. (; 14 March 1908 – 3 May 1961) was a French phenomenological philosopher, strongly influenced by Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. The constitution of meaning in human experience was his main interest an ...
,
André Breton
André Robert Breton (; 19 February 1896 – 28 September 1966) was a French writer and poet, the co-founder, leader, and principal theorist of surrealism. His writings include the first ''Surrealist Manifesto'' (''Manifeste du surréalisme'') o ...
, and
Paul Valéry
Ambroise Paul Toussaint Jules Valéry (; 30 October 1871 – 20 July 1945) was a French poet, essayist, and philosopher. In addition to his poetry and fiction (drama and dialogues), his interests included aphorisms on art, history, letters, mus ...
. During the war, he was a prisoner and escaped. Then he became a member of the Resistance near the city of Lyon in the "Service Périclès".
Beaufret and Heidegger
In 1946, as Heidegger's continued teaching privileges came into question by the
denazification
Denazification (german: link=yes, Entnazifizierung) was an Allied initiative to rid German and Austrian society, culture, press, economy, judiciary, and politics of the Nazi ideology following the Second World War. It was carried out by remov ...
committees, he made Beaufret's acquaintance. Beaufret engaged Heidegger on the development of French existentialism, and Heidegger wrote the ''
Letter on Humanism
"Letter on Humanism" (german: Über den Humanismus) refers to a famous letter written by Martin Heidegger in December 1946 in response to a series of questions by Jean Beaufret (10 November 1946) about the development of French existentialism. Hei ...
'' (Brief über den Humanismus) to Beaufret in response. Beaufret took his students to visit Heidegger at Todtnauberg in 1947 following a month-long Franco-German academic exchange at
Freiburg im Breisgau
Freiburg im Breisgau (; abbreviated as Freiburg i. Br. or Freiburg i. B.; Low Alemannic German, Low Alemannic: ''Friburg im Brisgau''), commonly referred to as Freiburg, is an independent city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. With a population o ...
, while
Baden-Württemberg
Baden-Württemberg (; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million inhabitants across a ...
was still under French occupation.
Jean-François Lyotard
Jean-François Lyotard (; ; ; 10 August 1924 – 21 April 1998) was a French philosopher, sociologist, and literary theorist. His interdisciplinary discourse spans such topics as epistemology and communication, the human body, modern art and ...
, one of the group of students on the trip selected to visit Heidegger, wrote about the experience thus:
:I remember a sly peasant in his ''Hütte'', dressed in traditional costume, of sententious speech and shifty eye, apparently lacking in shame and anxiety, protected by his knowledge and flattered by his discipline. This picture was enough to prevent me from becoming a "Heideggerian." I take no pride in this. These were fugitive impressions, due no doubt to the prejudices of a young Parisian. I continued to read his work. ("Heidegger and 'the Jews': a Conference in Vienna and Freiburg", p. 137, in ''Political Writings'')
Beaufret remained a close associate of Heidegger's, and it was through Beaufret that Heidegger became aware of
Jacques Derrida's work.
He was "a legendary professor of philosophy, having trained generations of students and future professors" (D. Pettigrew and F. Raffoul, ''French Interpretations of Heidegger'', p. 6).
Beaufret is considered the wellspring of "orthodox French Heideggerianism," which was the element of French philosophy that was most dismissive of Heidegger's involvement with
National Socialism
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hit ...
after the French publication in 1987 of
Víctor Farías's ''Heidegger and Nazism''. One reason for Beaufret's dismissal of Farías may have been the latter's revealing that Beaufret had written things that supported the
Holocaust denier
Holocaust denial is an antisemitic conspiracy theory that falsely asserts that the Nazi genocide of Jews, known as the Holocaust, is a myth, fabrication, or exaggeration. Holocaust deniers make one or more of the following false statements:
* ...
Robert Faurisson.* In a letter sent to Faurisson, Beaufret is quoted as saying:
"I believe that for my part I have traveled approximately the same path as you and have been considered suspect for having expressed the same doubts
oncerning the existence of the gas chambers Fortunately for me, this was done orally." Also
Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida (; ; born Jackie Élie Derrida; See also . 15 July 1930 – 9 October 2004) was an Algerian-born French philosopher. He developed the philosophy of deconstruction, which he utilized in numerous texts, and which was developed t ...
was shocked by Beaufret's anti-Semitic tirade against
Emmanuel Levinas
Emmanuel Levinas (; ; 12 January 1906 – 25 December 1995) was a French philosopher of Lithuanian Jewish ancestry who is known for his work within Jewish philosophy, existentialism, and phenomenology, focusing on the relationship of ethics to me ...
.
François Fédier replied that Beaufret actually wrote this letter in 1978, long before Faurisson declared himself as a true negationist, so that he is absolutely not denying the Holocaust (this is
demonstrably untrue; Faurisson had published 2 Holocaust-denying articles in 1978 already, and had claimed ''
The Diary of Anne Frank
''The Diary of a Young Girl'', also known as ''The Diary of Anne Frank'', is a book of the writings from the Dutch-language diary kept by Anne Frank while she was in hiding for two years with her family during the Nazi occupation of the Netherl ...
'' as a forgery the same year). Beaufret wrote the letter only because Faurisson, who was a former student of his, had been violently attacked in the street.
[ François Fédier, « Lettre au Pr. H.Ott » in ''Regarder voir'', Belles Lettres/Archimbaud, 1995, p.244] Concerning the so-called anti-Semitic tirade, Jacques Derrida actually didn't hear it : this was reported to him by a friend, Roger Laporte, and Beaufret denied it completely.
References
Sources
* Jean Beaufret, ''Dialogue with Heidegger : Greek Philosophy'', translated by M. Sinclair, Bloomington : Indiana University Press, 2006.
* ''L'Endurance de la pensée. Pour saluer Jean Beaufret'', Paris : Plon, 1968.
*
François Fédier, ''Heidegger vu de France'', ''Lettre au professeur H. Ott'', in ''Regarder Voir'', Paris : Les Belles Lettres/ Archimbaud, 1995.
* Pierre Jacerme, "The Thoughtful Dialogue Between Martin Heidegger and Jean Beaufret : A New Way of Doing Philosophy", in
David Pettigrew and
François Raffoul (eds.), ''French Interpretations of Heidegger : An Exceptional Reception'', Albany : SUNY Press, 2006.
*
Frédéric de Towarnicki, ''À la rencontre de Heidegger. Souvenirs d'un messager de la Forêt-Noire'', Paris, Gallimard, 1993.
External links
Hommage à Jean Beaufret. François Fédier: Lycée Condorcet, 11 mai 2004Jean Beaufret: ''Dialogue with Heidegger'', I
{{DEFAULTSORT:Beaufret, Jean
1907 births
1982 deaths
People from Creuse
École Normale Supérieure alumni
French historians of philosophy
Phenomenologists
20th-century French philosophers
Continental philosophers
Analysands of Jacques Lacan
French Resistance members
Heidegger scholars
20th-century French historians
French male writers
Lycée Condorcet teachers