Léon Robin Explained

Léon Robin (Nantes, 17 January 1866July 1947) was a French philosopher and scholar of Greek philosophy, professor of history of ancient philosophy at the Sorbonne from 1924 to 1936.

Robin, the son of a merchant, began teaching in the Faculty of Letters at Paris in 1913. In 1924 he took up the chair of history of ancient philosophy, which had lapsed after the death of Louis Rodier in 1913.^[1] In 1927 he was visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania. On his retirement from the Paris chair, his successor was Pierre-Maxime Schuhl.^[2] Robin subsequently served as Director of the International Institute of Philosophy.^[3]

Léon Robin translated the dialogues of Plato into French.

Works

• La théorie platonicienne des idées et des nombres d'après Aristote; étude historique et critique, 1908
• La théorie platonicienne de l'amour, 1908
• (transl. and ed.) Plato, Oeuvres complètes, 1920
• La pensée grecque et les origines de l'esprit scientifique, 1923. English translation, Greek thought and the origins of the scientific spirit, 1928
• La morale antique, 1938
• Pyrrhon et le scepticisme grec, 1944

Notes and References

1. Cristina Chimisso, Writing the history of the mind: philosophy and science in France, 1900 to 1960s, 2008, p.24-26
2. Denis O'Brien, 'Apologia pro vita sua', in Agonistes: Essays in honour of Denis O'Brien, Ashgate, 2005, p.xii
3. Joseph Bochenski, Contemporary European philosophy, University of California Press, 1969, p.263