Emmanuel Mounier

Emmanuel Mounier ( born March 1, 1905 in Grenoble, † March 23, 1950 in Chatenay -Malabry near Paris ) was a French philosopher and founder of the journal Esprit. He is regarded as the chief representative of the French personalism and the father of the personalist revolution.

Personal and professional development

Mounier grew up as the son of a pharmacist up in a very Catholic family. After he had canceled an initiated on request of his father to study medicine, Mounier studied from 1924 to 1927 at the University of Grenoble philosophy. He was a member of the A.C.J.F. ( Association catholique de la jeunesse française ) and the Vincent Conference (Organisation for the support of people who are affected by social deprivation ). By working in the Vinzenz conference he learned the distress in the slums of Grenoble know what impressed him deeply. As a devout Catholic Mounier joined philosophical thought with life close up, responsibly, socially critical Christianity, which he showed at the same time as a staunch opponent of capitalism, Nazism and fascism.

He completed his studies in philosophy at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1927-28 from. After completing his studies he taught from 1930 to 1931 at the school Sainte -Marie in Neuilly and 1931-1932 at the high school in Saint- Omer. During this period (1931 ) published his first book, Mounier " La Pensee de Charles Peguy ," which was created in collaboration with Marcel Peguy and Georges Izard.

In October 1932, Mounier founded at the age of 27 years, along with some friends, the magazine Esprit, within the meaning of Comenius, as thus " personalistic magazine in the fight against the established disorder" and inspired the spiritual movement of personalism. He led the editors of the " Esprit " and was considered from now on as the " spiritual father " of the personalist movement.

In the period 1933-1939 Mounier taught at the French School in Brussels in 1935 and married Paulette Leclercq.

After France and Britain entered the Second World War, has assigned him in September 1939, the Alpine hunters. Mounier, however, was stationed near Grenoble, where he remained during the armed conflict between France and Germany. After the German victory over the French army in 1940, he came for three weeks in German captivity.

He took over after his release in 1940 again the editors of the magazine " Esprit ", the underground movement, whose magazine Carnets he now also edited and was in the time from 1940 to 1941 teaching of philosophy at the Vincentians of Lyon and at the Robin - school in Vienne. On August 25, 1941, the editors of the " Esprit " the work laid down, as the magazine was banned by the Vichy regime.

Mounier was then arrested on January 15, 1942 on the orders of the Vichy regime, because he was considered one of the spiritual leaders of the resistance group Combat (see magazine of the same as well). Since this resistance group consisted of left-wing Catholics and right-wing Socialists, she was considered a threat to the Internal Organization and battered by arrests. Release of the shipment in the prison of Clermont -Ferrand (21 January 1942), subject to conditions (21 February 1942), re-arrest in Lyon (29 April 1942) and transfer to Vals (May 2, 1942 For Mounier now followed ), where he eventually twelve days went on a hunger strike. During the period of July 7, 1942 to October 30, 1942, where he was then acquitted martyrdom after 9 months, he was imprisoned in Saint -Paul in Lyon. During the time of his imprisonment he wrote the book " Traité du caractère ", which was published in 1946.

In the period after his release from prison, until the liberation of the Vichy regime, he lived with his family, under the birth name of his wife ( Leclercq ), in Dieulefit, in the Drome. Pension Beauvallon, which referred Mounier with his wife and three daughters, and from where he established links with the Resistance of Lyon, soon became a meeting place for the new Esprit circle.

1944 Mounier returned back to Paris and in December of the same year he launched the first issue of a new series of the magazine " Esprit " out. He referred back to his house in Chatenay, which was as before the center of the meeting of his old companions and friends. Besides Mounier cooperated with the magazine Jean Lacroix, René Biot, Paul- Louis Landsberg, Nikolai Berdyaev, Jacques Maritain and Gabriel Marcel, Louis Lavelle and Louis Meylan.

Parallel to numerous activities and initiatives in France, Mounier undertook in the last and most productive years of his life, a variety of trips abroad, among others in Belgium, Berlin, Denmark, in the French occupation zone of Germany, according to French Equatorial Africa, the UK, Italy, Norway, Austria, Poland, Sweden and Switzerland.

In 1948 he founded in Paris with the participation of many French intellectuals such as Alfred Grosser, the Comité français d' échanges exchange organization avec l' Allemagne nouvelle. The committee existed until 1967, and pursued by the journal Allemagne and countless lectures of German at the Sorbonne continue the goals of the Resistance, namely the creation of a European federation, including Germany. Through the encouragement of a public German - French exchange of ideas, the " Comité français d' échanges avec l' Allemagne nouvelle " took some influence on Western European politics in the 1950s and 1960s.

On March 22, 1950 in Chatenay -Malabry Mounier died of heart failure.

Importance

Emmanuel Mounier importance for philosophy consists in the movement of personalism, starting from France, a foundation ( The personalistic manifest) and a mouthpiece to have ( The magazine " Esprit " Weblink see below) gives. Without dogmatism and faithful he tried to carry the basic Christian principles and to live by his own example. He was convinced that there are certain fundamental truths of the existence of people who are not new, but eternal, and applies it to defend against ignorance and reductionism. Mounier personalism is thus directed against the ruling (state) ideologies of his time and thought of as a " signal for gathering " of ways a historical way out (see Third Way ). His involvement in the 1930s and 1940s would be more important than ever, as an overcoming of individualism has not been completed, especially in the Western, capitalist societies. With his personalism he wants to lead humanity into a true Enlightenment. His manifest is an explicitly practical philosophy, which is to act by altering persuasion on people and thereby to the social conditions.

Publications

• Manifeste au service du personnalisme (Series: Esprit Collection ) Fernand Aulier, Editions Montaigne, Paris 1936; ( The personalistic manifesto Jean -Christophe Verlag, Zurich 1936)
• Qu'est- ce que le personnalisme? Paris 1947
• Personalism and the personalist movement, in: The Umschau. International Review Vol 1, Issue 2, Mainz 1946
• Personalist and communitarian revolution, in: Collected Works. Sigueme, Salamanca 1990
• Existential philosophy and activism, in Mercury. German magazine for European thought, ed Hans Paeschke inter alia, vol 1, Issue 5, 1947, pp. 679-696
• Introduction to the existence philosophies smoke, bathroom Salty 1949
• Thoughts for an apocalyptic time: Lancelot. The messenger from France. Monthly ed. Gerhard Heller & Hans Paeschke. Publisher G. Lingenbrink, Rastatt. Issue 8, 1947, pp. 3 - 24

Secondary literature

• Wolfgang Seeger: Politics and person. Emmanuel Mounier 's Personalism as a political humanism. Freiburg, Univ. Diss, 1966
• Giuseppe Flores d' Arcais: La pedagogia nell ' pensiero cristiano. In: " Grande Antologia filosofica ", Milano 1954
• Romano Guardini: World and person. Werkbund -Verlag, Würzburg 1939
• Winfried Böhm / G. Flores d' Arcais (ed.): The pedagogy of French-speaking countries in the 20th century, Klett- Cotta, Stuttgart 1980
• Martin knitting man: L' Allemagne nouvelle contre l' Allemagne éternelle: The French intellectuals and the Franco-German understanding 1944-1950. Discourses, initiatives, biographies Frankfurt, New York, among others 2004 ISBN 3-631-52195-2
• Duy Tu Vu: individualisme collectivisme, personnalisme dans l'oeuvre d' Emmanuel Mounier. De la personne humaine à la communaute Bonn, Faculty of Arts, Diss on May 23, 1962
• Ingeborg Koza: Emmanuel Mounier. In: Biographic- bibliographic church encyclopedia ( BBKL ). Volume 6, Bautz, Herzberg 1993, ISBN 3-88309-044-1, 211-213 Sp. (Articles / Articles beginning possibly in the Internet Archive )