Jean-Louis Chrétien

Chrétien was a phenomenologist, but one who consciously practiced within a tradition: not only the phenomenological tradition of Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty, but the Christian-Platonic tradition of Augustine. Throughout his works, he pursued deep engagements with philosophers and theologians in these traditions, as well as poets and novelists who could help him address the human questions in which he was interested. A chief research project of Chrétien’s through multiple publications was the experience of transcendence, what he called the “excess of the encounter with things, other, world, and God . . . this encounter requires, most imperatively, our response, and yet seems at the same time to prohibit it.” Many of his books trace different aspects of this basic picture, working out phenomenologies of personal encounter, response to the call of being (The Call and the Response), prayer (“The Wounded Word”), and art (Hand to Hand). Perhaps most centrally, his phenomenology finds its center in the experience of speech (The Ark of Speech), in which we are always trying to make the impossible response to the fundamental excess of reality. Thus, in a 2013 interview, Chrétien declared that "the guiding theme of all of my writings has been a phenomenology of speech as the place where all meaning comes to light and is received."

Born in Paris to Henri and Anna Chrétien, he was raised in an agnostic household. His father was a communist activist and doctor in the International Brigades in Spain, and had spent time in the Natzweiler-Struthof and Dachau concentration camps. As a young man in his mid-twenties, Chrétien went against his father’s wishes, converted to Catholicism, and was baptized on Pentecost Sunday. Henceforth, his faith would play a fundamental role in the development not only of his life, but his unique brand of philosophy. Chrétien studied at the Lycée Charlemagne in the late 1960s, and graduated with a first from the École Normale Supérieure (1971), as well as a first in the Agrégation de philosophie (1974). After teaching in secondary schools for a few years, he earned a doctorate from the Sorbonne in 1983. Early encounters with the philosopher Henri Maldiney played a significant role in guiding the pursuit of his philosophical vocation. His friendship with the philosopher Vladimir Jankélévitch was another factor, as well as a foundational encounter with the writings of Martin Heidegger. He wrote a dissertation under Pierre Aubenque on “The Hermeneutic of Obliquity in Neo-Platonism and Ancient Christianity.” After teaching for some years at the University of Créteil, Chrétien was invited to teach at the Sorbonne, where he obtained a chair in the history of philosophy of Late Antiquity and High Middle Ages. He taught courses there until 2017, when he retired to focus on writing. In 2012, he was awarded the Cardinal Lustiger Prize of the Académie Française, in recognition of the philosophical work of his lifetime.

Jean-Louis Chrétien (24 July 1952 – 28 June 2019) was a French philosopher in the tradition of phenomenology as well as a poet and religious thinker. Author of over thirty books, he was the 2012 winner of the Cardinal Lustiger Prize for his life’s work in philosophy. He was professor emeritus of philosophy at the Sorbonne before his death. He got immense popularity after his death.