Xavier Tilliette is a French philosopher, historian of philosophy

History of philosophy

The history of philosophy is the study of philosophical ideas and concepts through time. Issues specifically related to history of philosophy might include : How can changes in philosophy be accounted for historically? What drives the development of thought in its historical context? To what...

 and theologian, born on July 23, 1921, in Corbie

Corbie

Corbie is a commune of the Somme department in Picardie in northern France.-Geography:The small town is situated up river from Amiens, in the département of Somme and is the main town of the canton of Corbie. It lies in the valley of the River Somme, at the confluence of the River Ancre. The town...

 (Somme

Somme

Somme is a department of France, located in the north of the country and named after the Somme river. It is part of the Picardy region of France....

). Former student of Jean Wahl

Jean Wahl

Jean André Wahl was a French philosopher.-Early career:He was professor at the Sorbonne from 1936 to 1967, broken by World War II. He was in the U.S...

 and of Vladimir Jankélévitch

Vladimir Jankélévitch

Vladimir Jankélévitch was a French philosopher and musicologist.- Biography :Jankélévitch was the son of Russian Jewish parents, who had emigrated to France....

, he is a member of the Society of Jesus

Society of Jesus

The Society of Jesus is a Catholic male religious order that follows the teachings of the Catholic Church. The members are called Jesuits, and are also known colloquially as "God's Army" and as "The Company," these being references to founder Ignatius of Loyola's military background and a...

 (1938) and professor emeritus at the Catholic Institute of Paris (1969), at the Pontifical Gregorian University of Rome

Pontifical Gregorian University

The Pontifical Gregorian University is a pontifical university located in Rome, Italy.Heir of the Roman College founded by Saint Ignatius of Loyola over 460 years ago, the Gregorian University was the first university founded by the Jesuits...

 (1972), at the Lateran University and at the Centre Sèvres

Centre Sèvres

The Centre Sèvres - Facultés jésuites de Paris is a university-level institution established in 1974 in Paris that focuses on the study of theology and philosophy...

 in Paris.

Biography

Xavier Tilliette also taught philosophy at various universities as a "visiting professor" in France and abroad : Lima

Lima

Lima is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín rivers, in the central part of the country, on a desert coast overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Together with the seaport of Callao, it forms a contiguous urban area known as the Lima...

, Santiago, Berlin, Bremen

Bremen

The City Municipality of Bremen is a Hanseatic city in northwestern Germany. A commercial and industrial city with a major port on the river Weser, Bremen is part of the Bremen-Oldenburg metropolitan area . Bremen is the second most populous city in North Germany and tenth in Germany.Bremen is...

, Fribourg

Fribourg

Fribourg is the capital of the Swiss canton of Fribourg and the district of Sarine. It is located on both sides of the river Saane/Sarine, on the Swiss plateau, and is an important economic, administrative and educational center on the cultural border between German and French Switzerland...

, Heidelberg

Heidelberg

-Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of...

, Hamburg

Hamburg

-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

, Munich

Munich

Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

, Bonn

Bonn

Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....

, Tübingen

Tübingen

Tübingen is a traditional university town in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, on a ridge between the Neckar and Ammer rivers.-Geography:...

, Turin

Turin

Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...

, Ferrara

Ferrara

Ferrara is a city and comune in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital city of the Province of Ferrara. It is situated 50 km north-northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main stream of the Po River, located 5 km north...

, Urbino

Urbino

Urbino is a walled city in the Marche region of Italy, south-west of Pesaro, a World Heritage Site notable for a remarkable historical legacy of independent Renaissance culture, especially under the patronage of Federico da Montefeltro, duke of Urbino from 1444 to 1482...

, Rome, Macerata

Macerata

Macerata is a city and comune in central Italy, the capital of the province of Macerata in the Marche region.The historical city center is located on a hill between the Chienti and Potenza rivers. It consisted of the Picenes city named Ricina, then, after the romanization, Recina and Helvia Recina...

, Naples

Naples

Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

, Palermo

Palermo

Palermo is a city in Southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Province of Palermo. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old...

. He speaks fluent English, Italian, German and Spanish, in addition to Latin, Greek and Hebrew, and he reads Portuguese and Danish.

Specialist of Schelling and of Jaspers

Karl Jaspers

Karl Theodor Jaspers was a German psychiatrist and philosopher who had a strong influence on modern theology, psychiatry and philosophy. After being trained in and practicing psychiatry, Jaspers turned to philosophical inquiry and attempted to discover an innovative philosophical system...

, he has been developing since the 1970s a "philosophical christology

Christology

Christology is the field of study within Christian theology which is primarily concerned with the nature and person of Jesus Christ as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament. Primary considerations include the relationship of Jesus' nature and person with the nature...

" which he initiated. In the tradition of Schelling and of Maurice Blondel

Maurice Blondel

Maurice Blondel was a French philosopher.Blondel developed a "philosophy of action” that integrated classical Neoplatonic thought with modern Pragmatism in the context of a Christian philosophy of religion...

, he defends and illustrates the idea of a Christian philosophy

Christian philosophy

Christian philosophy may refer to any development in philosophy that is characterised by coming from a Christian tradition.- Origins of Christian philosophy :...

 born from the Revelation

Revelation

In religion and theology, revelation is the revealing or disclosing, through active or passive communication with a supernatural or a divine entity...

. He is also a specialist of Claudel

Paul Claudel

Paul Claudel was a French poet, dramatist and diplomat, and the younger brother of the sculptor Camille Claudel. He was most famous for his verse dramas, which often convey his devout Catholicism.-Life:...

, of phenomenology (Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Maurice Merleau-Ponty was a French phenomenological philosopher, strongly influenced by Karl Marx, Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger in addition to being closely associated with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir...

) and of German idealism

Idealism

In philosophy, idealism is the family of views which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial. Epistemologically, idealism manifests as a skepticism about the possibility of knowing any mind-independent thing...

.

Xavier Tilliette was twice winner of a prize from the French Academy. Several of his works were translated into English, Italian, German and Spanish.

Among his teachers, disciples or friends, along with Wahl and Jankélévitch, are Hans Urs von Balthasar

Hans Urs von Balthasar

Hans Urs von Balthasar was a Swiss theologian and priest who was nominated to be a cardinal of the Catholic Church...

, Karl Rahner

Karl Rahner

Karl Rahner, SJ was a German Jesuit and theologian who, alongside Bernard Lonergan and Hans Urs von Balthasar, is considered one of the most influential Roman Catholic theologians of the 20th century...

, Henri de Lubac

Henri de Lubac

Henri-Marie de Lubac, SJ was a French Jesuit priest who became a Cardinal of the Catholic Church, and is considered to be one of the most influential theologians of the 20th century...

, Gaston Fessard, Hans Georg Gadamer, Jürgen Habermas

Jürgen Habermas

Jürgen Habermas is a German sociologist and philosopher in the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism. He is perhaps best known for his theory on the concepts of 'communicative rationality' and the 'public sphere'...

, Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Maurice Merleau-Ponty was a French phenomenological philosopher, strongly influenced by Karl Marx, Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger in addition to being closely associated with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir...

, Jean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...

, Louis Bouyer

Louis Bouyer

Louis Bouyer was a French Lutheran minister who converted to Catholicism in 1939. During his religious career he was a scholar who was relied upon during the Second Vatican Council....

, Jean Daniélou, Emmanuel Lévinas

Emmanuel Lévinas

Emmanuel Levinas was a Lithuanian-born French Jewish philosopher and Talmudic commentator.-Life:Emanuelis Levinas received a traditional Jewish education in Lithuania...

, Paul Ricœur, Gabriel Marcel

Gabriel Marcel

Gabriel Honoré Marcel was a French philosopher, a leading Christian existentialist, and author of about 30 plays.He focused on the modern individual's struggle in a technologically dehumanizing society...

, Ambroise-Marie Carré, Yves Congar

Yves Congar

Yves Marie Joseph Congar was a French Dominican cardinal and theologian.-Early life:Born in Sedan, in northeast France, in 1904, Congar's home was occupied by the Germans for much of World War I...

, Michel de Certeau

Michel de Certeau

Michel de Certeau was a French Jesuit and scholar whose work combined history, psychoanalysis, philosophy, and the social sciences.-Education:...

, Stanislas Fumet, Maurice de Gandillac, Paul Doncœur, Pierre Blet, Marcel Brion

Marcel Brion

Marcel Brion was a French essayist, literary critic, novelist, and historian. -Biography:The son of a lawyer, Brion was classmates in Thiers with Marcel Pagnol and Albert Cohen. After completing his secondary education in Champittet, Switzerland, he studied law at the University of Aix-en-Provence...

, Robert Bresson

Robert Bresson

-Life and career:Bresson was born at Bromont-Lamothe, Puy-de-Dôme, the son of Marie-Élisabeth and Léon Bresson. Little is known of his early life and the year of his birth, 1901 or 1907, varies depending on the source. He was educated at Lycée Lakanal in Sceaux, Hauts-de-Seine, close to Paris, and...

, Enrico Castelli

Enrico Castelli

Enrico Castelli is an Italian basketball player who competed in the 1936 Summer Olympics.He was part of the Italian basketball team, which finished seventh in the Olympic tournament. He played three matches....

, Luigi Pareyson

Luigi Pareyson

Luigi Pareysón was an Italian philosopher.-Biography:Luigi Pareyson was born on 4 February 1918, in Piasco, in the province of Cuneo...

, Michel Henry

Michel Henry

Michel Henry was a French philosopher and novelist. He wrote five novels and numerous philosophical works. He also lectured at universities in France, Belgium, the United States of America, and Japan.- Biography :...

, Claude Bruaire, Jean Greisch, François Varillon, Albert Vanoye, Jean-Luc Marion

Jean-Luc Marion

Jean-Luc Marion is among the best-known living philosophers in France, former student of Jacques Derrida and one of the leading Catholic thinkers of modern times. Marion's take on the postmodern is informed by his expertise in patristic and mystical theology, phenomenology, and modern philosophy...

, Jean-Louis Vieillard-Baron.

He is a member of the Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici and of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities

Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities

The Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities is an independent public institution, located in Munich. It appoints scholars whose research has contributed considerably to the increase of knowledge within their subject...

 (Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften of Munich), and, since 2006, a corresponding member Accademia di estetica internazionale de Rapallo.

Xavier Tilliette is knight of the Légion d'honneur

Légion d'honneur

The Legion of Honour, or in full the National Order of the Legion of Honour is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the Consulat which succeeded to the First Republic, on 19 May 1802...

 and of the OMRI

Omri

Omri was a king of Israel, successful military campaigner and first in the line of Omride kings that included Ahab, Ahaziah and Joram.He was "commander of the army" of king Elah when Zimri murdered Elah and made himself king. Instead, the troops at Gibbethon chose Omri as king, and he led them to...

.

Selected bibliography

Xavier Tilliette wrote more than 2000 essays, books or articles, and his more comprehensive bibliography contains over 250 pages.

Books in French

• 1960 Karl Jaspers, Aubier, coll. « Théologie »
• 1962 Existence et Littérature, Desclée de Brouwer
• 1962 Philosophes contemporains, Gabriel Marcel, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Karl Jaspers, Desclée de Brouwer
• 1964 Jules Lequier
  Jules Lequier
  Jules Lequier was a French philosopher from Brittany. He wrote in favour of dynamic divine omniscience, wherein God's knowledge of the future is one of possibilities rather than actualities...
  
   ou le tourment de la liberté, Desclée de Brouwer
• 1970 Maurice Merleau-Ponty
  Maurice Merleau-Ponty
  Maurice Merleau-Ponty was a French phenomenological philosopher, strongly influenced by Karl Marx, Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger in addition to being closely associated with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir...
  
   ou la mesure de l'homme, Seghers
• 1970 Schelling. Une philosophie en devenir, t. I, Le Système vivant, 1794–1821, t. II, La Dernière Philosophie, 1821–1854, Vrin, rééd. 1992
• 1974–1977 Le Christ des philosophes, 3 fascicules, ICP
• 1978 Schelling. Textes esthétiques. Présentation et notes, Klincksieck, coll. « L'esprit et les formes »
• 1984 La Mythologie comprise. L'interprétation schellingienne du paganisme, Bibliopolis, Naples
• 1986 La Christologie idéaliste, préface de Joseph Doré, Desclée de Brouwer, coll. « Jésus et Jésus-Christ », 240 p.
• 1987 L'Absolu et la Philosophie. Essais sur Schelling, coll. « Épiméthée », PUF
• 1990 Le Christ de la philosophie, Cerf, coll. « Cogitatio Fidei », 295 p., prix Montyon de l'Académie française
  Académie française
  L'Académie française , also called the French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. The Académie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to King Louis XIII. Suppressed in 1793 during the French Revolution,...
  
   1991
• 1992 La Semaine sainte des philosophes, Desclée, coll. « Jésus et Jésus-Christ »
• 1993 Le Christ des philosophes : Du Maître de sagesse au divin Témoin, Culture et Vérité, Namur
• 1995 Recherches sur l'intuition intellectuelle, de Kant
  KANT
  KANT is a computer algebra system for mathematicians interested in algebraic number theory, performing sophisticated computations in algebraic number fields, in global function fields, and in local fields. KASH is the associated command line interface...
  
   à Hegel, Vrin
• 1999 Schelling, Biographie, Calmann-Lévy, coll. « La vie des philosophes »
• 2001 Les philosophes lisent la Bible, Cerf, 200 p., prix du Cardinal Grente de l'Académie française
  Académie française
  L'Académie française , also called the French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. The Académie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to King Louis XIII. Suppressed in 1793 during the French Revolution,...
  
   ainsi que pour l'ensemble de son œuvre
• 2001 La Mémoire et l'Invisible, éd. Ad Solem, Genève
• 2002 Jésus romantique, Desclée-Mame
• 2003 Fichte. La science la liberté, préface de Reinhard Lauth, Vrin
• 2005 Le Jésuite et le Poète, Éloge jubilaire à Paul Claudel, éd. de Paris, Versailles
• 2006 L'Église des philosophes, de Nicolas de Cuse à Gabriel Marcel
  Gabriel Marcel
  Gabriel Honoré Marcel was a French philosopher, a leading Christian existentialist, and author of about 30 plays.He focused on the modern individual's struggle in a technologically dehumanizing society...
  
  , Cerf Recension en ligne in Esprit & Vie
• 2006 Philosophies eucharistiques, de Descartes à Blondel, Cerf, 180 p., médaille Humboldt 2006
• 2007 Une introduction à Schelling, Honoré Champion

With other authors

• Jean Wahl et Gabriel Marcel, avec Emmanuel Lévinas
  Emmanuel Lévinas
  Emmanuel Levinas was a Lithuanian-born French Jewish philosopher and Talmudic commentator.-Life:Emanuelis Levinas received a traditional Jewish education in Lithuania...
  
   et Paul Ricœur, Beauchesne, 1976, 96 p., ISBN 2-7010-0240-0
• Hommage au Père Marcel Régnier, Archives de philosophie, 1999, Présentation en ligne

Written in Italian or in German

• Il Cristo dei Non-Credenti e altri saggi de filosofia cristiana, Editoria Ave, Roma, 1994
• Omaggi, Filosofi italiano del nostro tempo : Michele Federico Sciacca, Enrico Castelli Gattinara di Zubiena, Luigi Pareyson
  Luigi Pareyson
  Luigi Pareysón was an Italian philosopher.-Biography:Luigi Pareyson was born on 4 February 1918, in Piasco, in the province of Cuneo...
  
  , Augusto Del Noce, Alberto Caracciolo
  Alberto Caracciolo
  Alberto Pascual Caracciolo , was an Argentine tango musician, a musical arranger, orchestra director, composer and bandoneón player....
  
  , Italo Mancini, Enrico Garulli, Arturo Massolo, Pasquale Salvucci, Morcelliana, Brescia, 1997, 92 p.
• Del male e del bene, con Giuseppe Riconda (a cura di Francesco Tomasoni), Città Nuova Editrice, Roma, 2001
• Che cos'è cristologia filosofica, Morcelliana, 2004
• Schellings Pyrmonter Elegie. Der Briefurchsel mit Eliza Tapp, 1849–1854 (en collaboration), V. Klostermann, Frankfurt-am-Main, 2000

Essays published in the following reviews

• Étvdes
• Recherches de science religieuse
• Revue de métaphysique et de morale
  Revue de métaphysique et de morale
  The Revue de métaphysique et de morale is a French philosophy journal co-founded in 1893 by Léon Brunschvicg, Xavier Léon and Élie Halévy. The journal initially appeared six times a year, but since 1920 has been published quarterly...
  
  
• Archives de philosophie
• Communio
  Communio
  Communio is a federation of theological journals, founded in 1972 by Joseph Ratzinger, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Henri de Lubac, Walter Kasper, Marc Ouellet, Louis Bouyer and others. Communio, now published in fifteen editions , has become one of the most important journals of Catholic thought...
  
  
• Christus

Further reading

• La filosofia come santita delle razione. Scritti in onore di Xavier Tilliette, A cura di Antonio Russo & Jean-Louis Vieillard-Baron, Edizioni Università di Trieste, 2004
• Simone Stancampiano, La cristologia filosofica in Xavier Tilliette, Centro Studi Luigi Pareyson, Trauben, 2007 Recension en ligne

External links

• Revue Conférence, 2007, « Jean Wahl, mendiant de Dieu » by Xavier Tilliette
• « Rosenzweig, philosophe de la religion » by Xavier Tilliette
• Deutschen Nationalbibliothek