Émile Bréhier
{{Short description|French historian of philosophy}}
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Émile Bréhier ({{IPA|fr|bʁeje|lang}}; 12 April 1876, Bar-le-Duc – 3 February 1952, Paris) was a French philosopher. His interest was in classical philosophy, and the history of philosophy. He wrote a Histoire de la Philosophie, translated into English in seven volumes. This work inspired Frederick Copleston's own History of Philosophy (1946–1975), initially comprising nine volumes.
Life
Bréhier studied at the University of Paris. In 1908 he received his doctorate at the Sorbonne with a dissertation about Philo of Alexandria. From 1910 to 1912 he was Master of Philosophical Conferences at the University of Rennes, and professor of philosophy at the University of Bordeaux from 1912 to 1914.[https://books.google.com/books?id=oZQuAAAAYAAJ&q=W.H.+Grattan+Flood&pg=PA10 "Bréhier, Emile", The Catholic Encyclopedia and Its Makers, New York, the Encyclopedia Press, 1917, p. 18]{{PD-notice}} He was Henri Bergson's successor at the University of Paris in 1945. The art historian Louis Bréhier was his brother.
In 1914 Bréhier became a sub-lieutenant in the 344th Infantry Regiment; later he was made knight of the Légion d'honneur. In 1914 he lost his left arm in combat.
Philosophical work
He was an early follower of Bergson; in the 1930s there was an influential view that Bergsonism and Neoplatonism were linked.Paul Andrew Passavant, Jodi Dean, Empire's New Clothes: Reading Hardt and Negri (2004), p. 218.
He has been called "the sole figure in the French history who adopts an Hegelian interpretation of Neoplatonism",[http://classics.dal.ca/Faculty%20and%20Staff/Neoplatonism_and_Con.php Hankey p. 120] in Jean-Marc Narbonne, W. J. Hankey, Levinas and the Greek Heritage & One Hundred Years of Neoplatonism in France (2006). but also a Neo-Kantian opponent of Hegel.Bruce Baugh, French Hegel: From Surrealism to Postmodernism (2003), note p. 183.
Works
- Les idées philosophiques et religieuses de Philon d'Alexandrie (1908)
- La Théorie des incorporels dans l'ancien stoïcisme, Paris, Librairie Alphonse Picard & fils (1907).
- Schelling (1912)
- Histoire de la philosophie allemande (1921)
- La Philosophie de Plotin
- Plotin: Ennéades (with French translation), Collection Budé (1924–1938)
- Histoire de la philosophie – I: Antiquité et moyen âge (three volumes), II: La philosophie moderne (four volumes)
- La philosophie du moyen âge (1949)
- Le monde byzantin – la civilisation byzantine (1950)
- Chrysippe et l'ancien stoïcisme (Paris, 1951)
- Histoire de la philosophie allemande, 3rd edition updated by Paul Ricœur (1954).
- Études de philosophie antique (1955)
He contributed the articles "Philo Judaeus", and "Stoics and Stoic Philosophy" to the Catholic Encyclopedia.
Notes
References
- Alan D. Schrift (2006). Twentieth-Century French Philosophy: Key Themes And Thinkers, p. 107.
External links
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- [http://www.idih.org/wiki/%C3%89mile_Br%C3%A9hier IDIH page]
- [http://classiques.uqac.ca/classiques/brehier_emile/brehier_emile_photo/brehier_emile_photo.html Biography] {{in lang|fr}}
- [http://classiques.uqac.ca/classiques/brehier_emile/brehier_emile.html Oeuvres sur les classiques des sciences sociales] {{mono|:fr:Les classiques des sciences sociales}} {{in lang|fr}}
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Category:20th-century French historians
Category:French military personnel of World War I
Category:People from Bar-le-Duc
Category:University of Paris alumni
Category:Academic staff of the University of Paris
Category:French male non-fiction writers