Vladimir Jankélévitch Explained
| Region: | Western philosophy |
| Era: | 20th-century philosophy |
| Vladimir Jankélévitch |
| Birth Date: | 31 August 1903 |
| Birth Place: | Bourges, France |
| Death Place: | Paris, France |
| Alma Mater: | École normale supérieure
University of Lille |
| School Tradition: | Continental philosophy
Bergsonism
Philosophy of life |
| Main Interests: | Metaphysics, Ethics, Music, Temporality |
| Notable Works: | Le traité des vertus; Le-je-ne-sais-quoi et le presque-rien; Le paradoxe de la morale; La mort; L'Irréversible et la nostalgie |
| Influences: | Henri Bergson, Georg Simmel, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling, Lev Shestov |
| Influenced: | Emmanuel Levinas,[1] Arnold Davidson, Jacques Derrida, Cynthia Fleury, Catherine Clement |
Vladimir Jankélévitch (in French ʒɑ̃kelevitʃ/; 31 August 1903 – 6 June 1985) was a French philosopher and musicologist.
Biography
Jankélévitch was the son of Ukrainian Jewish parents, who had emigrated to France.In 1922 he started studying philosophy at the École normale supérieure in Paris, under Professor Bergson. 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.[2]
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 and at many universities, including Toulouse and Lille. In 1941 he joined the French Resistance. 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.
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, 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)
References
Notes and References
- Levinas acknowledges that his notion of the "wholly other" or "absolutely other" comes from Jankelevitch. See Emmanuel Levinas, "Phenomenon and Enigma," in Collected Philosophical Papers, trans. Alphonso Lingis (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1998), p. 47. Also read: Levinas, E., 1991, Humanisme de l’autre homme, Fata Morgana, p. 12. Direct references to Jankélévitch's thought can be found in "Transcendence and Height" (1962), "Proper Names" (1975), "Time and the Other" (1979), "God, Death and Time" (1993), "Alterity and Transcendence" (1995), and "Totality and Infinity" (1971).
- Alan D. Schrift, Twentieth-Century French Philosophy: Key Themes and Thinkers, John Wiley & Sons, 2009, pp. 140–1.
