Bernard Bourgeois

Bernard Bourgeois
Bernard Bourgeois
Born	2 September 1929 ; Varennes-Saint-Sauveur
Died	26 March 2024 (aged 94); Viriat
Education	Doctor of Arts
Alma mater	Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University ;

Bernard Bourgeois (September 2, 1929 – March 26, 2024) was a French philosopher. He was a member of Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques, and he was its president in 2014.^[1] He was a specialist in the history of modern German philosophy, from Kant to Marx, and in particular Hegel, several of whose works he translated into the French language. His fields of study include logic and dialectics, reason and political law, the philosophy of history, the relationship between religion and philosophy, and pedagogy.

Biography

Bernard Bourgeois graduated from the École normale supérieure in 1951. He received his agrégation in philosophy in 1954.^[2]

After his military service as a rifle officer in Algeria (1954–1957), he taught at the Lycée de Mâcon from 1957 to 1963. He then taught at the Faculté des Lettres et des Sciences humaines de Lyon. He obtained his doctorate from Paris-Sorbonne University in 1972, and went on to become a professor at the University of Lyon 2, then the University of Lyon-III until 1989. In March 1979, he was elected vice-president of teaching at Lyon-III, and expressed his concerns about the university's situation.^[3] In 1989, he was elected professor at the Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University.^[1]

At the same time, he assumed numerous institutional responsibilities as Dean of the Faculty of Lyon, member of the Conseil national des universités, member of the French Commission for UNESCO. From 1991 to 2010 he chaired the Société française de philosophie.^[4]

He was also director of the Revue de métaphysique et de morale, and has been a member of the Board of Directors of "Fondation Ostad Elahi – éthique et solidarité humaine" since its creation in 2000.

As an emeritus professor,^[5] he was elected on December 2, 2002, to the Académie des sciences morales et politiques in the philosophy section, to Olivier Lacombe's chair. He was delegated to the Séance solennelle des Cinq Académies in 2008, and presided over the Académie in 2014.^[6]

Bourgeois and Hegel

Bernard Bourgeois's work on Hegel's philosophy is situated within the problematics of twentieth-century French philosophy inaugurated by Jean Wahl and Alexandre Kojève, and continued with Jean Hyppolite. At the time, Hegel was a dominant philosophical figure around whom several philosophical currents – existentialism, phenomenology, Marxism and soon deconstruction –crystallized.^[7]

Bourgeois saw Hegelianism not as an antecedent of Marxism, but contrary to Marxism as a parenthesis of history, as the philosophy of freedom.^[6] He began a polemic against Francis Fukuyama's doctrine of the end of history, which sees liberal democracy as the end point of humanity's ideological evolution.^[8]

Honors

Publications

L’idéalisme de Fichte, Paris, PUF, 1968 (réédition Vrin, 1985)
La pensée politique de Hegel, Paris, PUF, 1969
Hegel à Francfort ou Judaïsme, Christianisme, Hégélianisme, Paris, Vrin, 1970
Le droit naturel de Hegel. Commentaire, Paris, Vrin, 1986
Philosophie et droits de l’homme, Paris, PUF, 1990
Éternité et historicité de l’Esprit selon Hegel, Paris, Vrin, 1991
Études hégéliennes. Raison et décision, Paris, PUF, 1992
La philosophie allemande classique, Paris, PUF, 1995
Hegel, Paris, Ellipses, 1998
Fichte, Paris, Ellipses, 2000
Le vocabulaire de Fichte, Paris, Ellipses, 2000
Le vocabulaire de Hegel, Paris, Ellipses, 2000
L’idéalisme allemand : Alternatives et progrès, Paris, Vrin, 2000
La raison moderne et le droit politique, Paris, Vrin, 2000
Hegel. Les actes de l’Esprit, Paris, Vrin, 2001
Les sciences morales et politiques [sous la dir. de], Paris, Hermann, 2016
Sept questions politiques du jour, Paris, Vrin, 2017
Penser l’histoire du présent avec Hegel, Paris, Vrin, 2017
Sur l’histoire ou la politique, Paris, Vrin, 2018
Pour Hegel, Paris, Vrin, 2019

Translations

Hegel, Encyclopédie des sciences philosophiques, I : La science de la logique, Paris, Vrin, 1970
Hegel, Des manières de traiter scientifiquement du droit naturel, Paris, Vrin, 1972
Hegel, Textes pédagogiques, Paris, Vrin, 1978
Hegel, Encyclopédie des sciences philosophiques, III : Philosophie de l’esprit, Paris, Vrin, 1988
Hegel, Concepts préliminaires de l’Encyclopédie des sciences philosophiques, Paris, Vrin, 1994
Hegel, Préface. Introduction à la Phénoménologie de l’Esprit, Paris, Vrin, 1997
Hegel, Encyclopédie des sciences philosophiques, II : Philosophie de la Nature, Paris, Vrin, 2004
Hegel, Phénoménologie de l'Esprit, Paris, Vrin, 2006
Hegel, Science de la logique, I : L'Être, Paris, Vrin, 2015
Hegel, Science de la logique, II : L'essence, Paris, Vrin, 2016
Hegel, Science de la logique, III : Le concept, Paris, Vrin, 2016

Notes and references

^ ^a ^b "Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques". Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques (in French). 2018-06-03. Retrieved 2024-04-10.
^ "Les agrégés de l'enseignement secondaire. Répertoire 1809-1960". rhe.ish-lyon.cnrs.fr (in French)..
^ Rapport Rousso (2001), chap. II, p.45
^ "Bernard Bourgeois - Le Sens Critique". Le Sens Critique. 2019-04-23. Retrieved 2020-03-10..
^ "Bernard Bourgeois". franceculture.fr (in French)..
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d "Bernard Bourgeois". academiesciencesmoralesetpolitiques.fr (in French). 3 June 2018..
^ "Entretien avec un philosophe académicien : "C'est difficile… mais notre époque doit s'estimer heureuse"". lejsl.com (in French). 31 October 2020..
^ Voir La Raison moderne et le droit politique, Paris, Vrin, 2000

Bernard Bourgeois

Biography

Bourgeois and Hegel

Honors

Publications

Translations

Notes and references

See also

Related articles

Bibliography

Biographical note

Tributes

Studies

External links