Jean Brun

Jean Brun (1919–1994) was a French philosopher known both for his work in the history of ancient philosophy and for his own existentially inspired thought. Educated at the Sorbonne under figures such as Ferdinand Alquié and Vladimir Jankélévitch, he passed the agrégation in philosophy in 1946 and was appointed professor at the University of Dijon in 1961, where he later directed the philosophy department for many years. He gained wide academic recognition through his celebrated volumes in the “Que sais-je?” series devoted to the Presocratics, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Neoplatonism—concise and remarkably clear syntheses that shaped generations of students. At the same time, Jean Brun became one of the major introducers of Søren Kierkegaard in France, writing the preface to the complete French edition of his works and drawing deep inspiration from his thought. His own body of work, comprising around thirty books, develops a demanding critique of modernity, its technical illusions, and its promises of mastery and progress. For Brun, philosophy was not merely a conceptual system but an existential experience confronting anxiety, finitude, and the search for the absolute. In his view, the study of ancient philosophy was never purely historical; it was a way of probing the human condition and measuring the tension between rational thought and the mystery of existence.