Jacques Brunschwig

Jacques Brunschwig (born April 27, 1929 in Paris , † April 16, 2010 in Antony ( Département Hauts-de-Seine )) was a French historian of philosophy and professor of philosophy at the Université de Paris-I . He was a cousin of the ancient historian Pierre Vidal-Naquet .

Life

Brunschwig is the son of the graduate of the École Polytechnique , Robert Brunschwig (1893-1939), and Isabelle Vidal-Naquet (1898-1954), the aunt of Pierre Vidal-Naquet (1930-2006), with whom he started his career Reading by ancient authors.

During the Second World War, his family lived with the families of his maternal uncles, Lucien and Georges Vidal-Naquet, first in Fouesnant ( Finistère ) from July 1939 to June 1940 , then in Marseille . Jacques Brunschwig first attended the Lycée de Quimper, then the Lycée Périer. After the occupation of southern France by the Wehrmacht in November 1942, the children were taken to Megève in view of the danger of deportation and stayed there until April 1943. Then the three families separated: the Brunschwigs went to Dieulefit , while the Vidal-Naquets returned to Marseille, where Lucien and his wife were arrested on May 15, 1944 and deported to Auschwitz , where they were killed shortly afterwards.

After the liberation, the Brunschwigs returned to Paris. Jacques Brunschwig graduated from the Lycée Carnot and was preparing for the concours for the École normal supérieure at the Lycée Henri-IV , which he passed in 1948 as the first of the class. He studied philosophy and passed the Agrégation in 1952 as the first of his class.

During his professorship at the Université de Paris-I, he held various visiting professorships and research stays:

• 1974 visiting professor at the University of Abidjan (Ivory Coast)
• 1979–80 visiting professor, Princeton University (USA)
• 1984–85 Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin
• 1989 visiting professor at the Universities of Padua and Venice
• 1991 Visiting Professor, University of Texas at Austin (USA)
• 1999 Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Christ's College , Cambridge

Awards

In 1990 he was elected Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy , in 1996 he was awarded the Prize of the Antonio Jannone Foundation (Rome) and in 2007 he was made a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

Research areas

Brunschwig mainly researched Aristotle , whose topical he edited and translated, and Hellenistic philosophy ( Epicureanism , Stoicism , Skepticism ). A collection of his essays has also been published in an English language version. Going beyond ancient philosophy , he published a translation of the Regulae ad directionem ingenii by Descartes and editions of the Essais de Théodicée and the Nouveaux essais sur l'entendement humain by Leibniz .

Fonts (selection)

• Aristote, Topiques. Texts établi et traduit by Jacques Brunschwig. 2 volumes. Les Belles Lettres, Paris I: 1967, II: 2007.
• (Ed. With Martha Nussbaum ): Passions and Perception. Studies in Hellenistic Philosophy of Mind. Proceedings of the Fifth Symposium Hellenisticum . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1993.
• Papers in Hellenistic Philosophy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1994, ISBN 0-521-41712-0 .
• Études sur les philosophies hellénistiques. Épicurisme, stoïcisme, skepticisme (Collection Épiméthée). Presses universitaires de France, Paris 1995, ISBN 2-13-046792-X .
• with GER Lloyd (in collaboration with Pierre Pellegrin ): Le Savoir grec. Dictionnaire critique. Préface de Michel Serres . Flammarion, Paris 1996 ISBN 2-08-210370-6 .
  • German translation: The knowledge of the Greeks. An encyclopedia. Fink, Munich 2000.
  • English translation: Greek Thought. A Guide to Classical Knowledge. Harvard University Press, 2000.
• La philosophy à l'époque hellénistique. In: Monique Canto-Sperber (ed. With Jonathan Barnes , Luc Brisson , Jacques Brunschwig, Gregory Vlastos ), philosophy grecque . Presses Universitaires de France, Paris 1997, 2e édition revue et corrigée 1998, pp. 457-591.
• Pyrrhonism . In: Mary Louise Gill , Pierre Pellegrin (Eds.), A Companion to Ancient Philosophy. Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester 2006, paperback 2009, Ss. 465-485.

literature

• Monique Canto-Sperber , Pierre Pellegrin (Eds.): Le Style de la pensée. Recueil de textes in tribute to Jacques Brunschwig. Les Belles Lettres, Paris 2002.

Web links

• Literature by and about Jacques Brunschwig in the SUDOC catalog (Association of French University Libraries)
• Université Paris 1: Biobibliography
• Roger-Pol Droit : Jacques Brunschwig . Le Monde , April 23, 2010 (obituary)