Vladimir Jankélévitch
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Vladimir Jankélévitch (; 31 August 1903 – 6 June 1985) was a French
philosopher Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...
and
musicologist Musicology is the academic, research-based study of music, as opposed to musical composition or performance. Musicology research combines and intersects with many fields, including psychology, sociology, acoustics, neurology, natural sciences, f ...
.


Biography

Jankélévitch was the son of Ukrainian Jewish parents, who had emigrated to
France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
. In 1922 he started studying philosophy at the
École normale supérieure École or Ecole may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by Secondary education in France, secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing i ...
in Paris, under Professor
Bergson Henri-Louis Bergson (; ; 18 October 1859 â€“ 4 January 1941) was a French philosopher who was influential in the traditions of analytic philosophy and continental philosophy, especially during the first half of the 20th century until the S ...
. In 1924 he completed his DES thesis (', roughly equivalent to an MA thesis) on ''Le Traité : la dialectique. Ennéade I 3 de Plotin'' under the direction of Émile Bréhier.Alan D. Schrift, ''Twentieth-Century French Philosophy: Key Themes and Thinkers'', John Wiley & Sons, 2009, pp. 140–1. From 1927 to 1932 he taught at the , where he wrote his doctorate on Schelling. He returned to France in 1933, where he taught at the Lycée du Parc in
Lyon Lyon (Franco-Provençal: ''Liyon'') is a city in France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of the French Alps, southeast of Paris, north of Marseille, southwest of Geneva, Switzerland, north ...
and at many universities, including
Toulouse Toulouse (, ; ; ) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Haute-Garonne department and of the Occitania (administrative region), Occitania region. The city is on the banks of the Garonne, River Garonne, from ...
and
Lille Lille (, ; ; ; ; ) is a city in the northern part of France, within French Flanders. Positioned along the Deûle river, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France Regions of France, region, the Prefectures in F ...
. In 1941 he joined the
French Resistance The French Resistance ( ) was a collection of groups that fought the German military administration in occupied France during World War II, Nazi occupation and the Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy#France, collaborationist Vic ...
. After the war, in 1951, he was appointed to the chair of Moral Philosophy at the Sorbonne ( Paris I after 1971), where he taught until 1978. He was life long friends with phenomenologist,
Emmanuel Levinas Emmanuel Levinas (born Emanuelis 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 rel ...
, although Jankélévitch is not generally considered to be in the phenomenological tradition himself, but rather a ''bergsonian'' and continuing the French spiritualist traditions going back to
Rousseau Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher ('' philosophe''), writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects ...
and
Maine de Biran François-Pierre-Gontier de Biran (; 29 November 176620 July 1824), usually known as Maine de Biran (), was a French philosopher. Life Maine de Biran was born in Bergerac. He assumed the name Maine (sometime before 1787) from his father's esta ...
.While Bergson's philosophy was a recurring theme throughout his life, Jankélévitch is considered an original thinker, especially in moral philosophy and the areas of musicology and
philosophy of music Philosophy of music is the study of "fundamental questions about the nature and value of music and our experience of it".Andrew Kania,The Philosophy of Music, ''The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', Spring 2014 edition, edited by Edward N. Zal ...
. Bergson's book on morality, ''The Two Sources of Morality and Religion'' (1932) came out one year before Jankelevitch's first book on "bad conscience" and can be seen as an original growth that says something new while remaining complimentary to Bergson's views. In May 1968, he was among the few French professors to participate in the student protests. The extreme subtlety of his thought is apparent throughout his works where the very slightest gradations are assigned great importance.


Bibliography

* 1931: ''Henri Bergson'' (tr. into Italian, Brescia, Morcelliana, 1991. tr. into English, Nils F. Schott, 2015) * 1933: ''L'Odyssée de la conscience dans la dernière philosophie de Schelling'' * 1933: ''Valeur et signification de la mauvaise conscience'' * 1936: ''La Mauvaise conscience'' (tr. into Italian, Bari, Dedalo, 2000; tr. into English, Andrew Kelly, 2015) * 1936: ''L'Ironie ou la bonne conscience'' (tr. into Italian, Genova, Il melangolo, 1988; tr. into Serbian, Novi Sad, 1989; tr. into German by Jürgen Brankel, Frankfurt a. M., Suhrkamp, 2012) * 1938: ''L'Alternative'' * 1938: ''
Gabriel Fauré Gabriel Urbain Fauré (12 May 1845 â€“ 4 November 1924) was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th-century composers. ...
, ses mélodies, son esthétique'' * 1939: ''Ravel'' (tr. into German by Willi Reich, Reinbek, Rowohlt, 1958; tr. into English by Margaret Crosland, NY-London, 1959; tr. into Italian by Laura Lovisetti Fua, Milano, Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 1962) * 1942: ''Du mensonge'' (tr. into Italian by Marco Motto, Milano, Raffaello Cortina, 2000; tr. into German "Von der Lüge", Berlin, Parerga Verlag GmbH, 2004) * 1947: ''Le Mal'' (tr. into Italian by Fernanda Canepa, Genova, Marietti, 2003) * 1949: ''Traité des vertus'' (tr. into Italian by Elina Klersy Imberciadori, Milano, Garzanti, 1987) * 1950: ''Debussy et le mystère de I'instant'' * 1954: ''Philosophie première introduction à une philosophie du Presque'' (tr. into German by Jürgen Brankel, Vienna, Turia + Kant, 2006) * 1956: ''L'Austérité et la Vie morale'' * 1957: ''Le Je-ne-sais quoi et le presque-rien'' * 1960: ''Le Pur et l'impur'' * 1961: ''La Musique et l'Ineffable'', (tr. into Serbian by Jelena Jelić, Novi Sad, 1987; tr. into Italian by Enrica Lisciani-Petrini, Milano, Bompiani, 1998; tr. into English by Carolyn Abbate, 2003; tr. into Dutch by Ronald Commers, Gent Belgie, 2005) * 1963: ''L'Aventure, l'Ennui, le Sérieux'' (tr. into Italian by Carlo Alberto Bonadies, Genova Marietti, 1991) * 1966: ''La Mort'' (tr. into Bosnian by Almasa Defterdarević-Muradbegović, Sarajevo, 1997; tr. into German by Brigitta Restorff, Frankfurt a. M., Suhrkamp, 2005; tr. into Italian Torino, Einaudi, 2009; tr. into Croatian, Zagreb, AGM, 2011) – * 1967: ''Le pardon'', (tr. into Italian by Liana Aurigemma, Milano, IPL, 1969; tr. into English as ''Forgiveness'' by Andrew Kelley, 2005) * 1968: ''Le Sérieux de l'intention'' * 1970: ''Les Vertus et l'Amour * 1971: ''L 'Imprescriptible'', (a section ("Pardonner?") of which is translated into English by Ann Hobart as "Should We Pardon Them?," ''Critical Inquiry'', 22, Spring 1996; tr. into Italian by Daniel Vogelmann, "Perdonare?", Firenze, Giuntina, 1987; tr. into German by, Claudia Brede-Konersmann, "Das Verzeihen", Frankfurt a. M., Suhrkamp, 2003) * 1972: ''L'Innocence et la méchanceté'' * 1974: ''L'Irréversible et la nostalgie'' * 1978: ''Quelque part dans l'inachevé, en collaboration avec Béatrice Berlowitz'' (tr. into German by Jürgen Brankel, Vienna, Turia + Kant, 2008) * 1980: ''Le Je-ne-sais-quoi et le presque rien'' (tr. into Italian by Carlo Alberto Bonadies, Genova, Marietti, 1987; tr. into German by Jürgen Brankel, Vienna, Turia + Kant, 2009) * 1981: ''Le Paradoxe de la morale'' (tr. into Italian by Ruggero Guarini, Firenze, Hopefulmonster, 1986; tr. into Croatian by Daniel Bućan, Zagreb, AGM, 2004) Posthumous publications * 1994 ''Penser la mort? Entretiens'', recueil établi par F. Schwab, Paris, Liana Levi (tr. into Italian, Milano, Raffaello Cortina, 1995; tr. into German by Jürgen Brankel, Vienna, Turia + Kant, 2003)


Notes


References


Biography at jankelevitch.fr
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jankelevitch, Vladimir 1903 births 1985 deaths Jews in the French resistance Jewish philosophers Jewish musicologists Lille University of Science and Technology alumni Academic staff of the Lille University of Science and Technology Academic staff of the University of Paris French people of Russian-Jewish descent École Normale Supérieure alumni 20th-century French philosophers Writers from Bourges Irony theorists 20th-century French musicologists Ravel scholars