Vladimir Jankelevitch 1903 – 1985

Vladimir Jankelevitch was a French moral philosopher and musicologist, born in Bourges to Russian Jewish parents. After early studies under Bergson, he taught for thirty years at the Sorbonne and became one of the most influential French moral thinkers of the postwar period. His writings range across the great moral concepts: irony, the je ne sais quoi, forgiveness, evil, virtue, and death. After his deportation under Vichy, he refused for the rest of his life to read or engage German philosophy or German music. His L'Imprescriptible argued that there is no statute of limitations on inhumanity.