Rémi Brague (born 8 September 1947) is a French historian of philosophy specializing in Islamic, Jewish, and Christian thought of the Middle Ages. He is professor emeritus of Arabic and religious philosophy at theSorbonne and Romano Guardini chair of philosophy (emeritus) at theLudwig Maximilian University of Munich.
Educated primarily at theÉcole Normale Supérieure inParis, Brague began his career as a student ofGreek philosophy, interpreted in a distinctly modern key. His doctoral thesis, later published asAristote et la question du monde: Essai sur le contexte cosmologique et anthropologique de l'ontologie (1988), developed a phenomenological account ofAristotle's world conception.[1] In particular, his goal was to write the book on Aristotle thatHeidegger would have written had he not writtenBeing and Time.[2] From there, he was led to study Hebrew to read theOld Testament and Arabic in order "to read the Jewish philosopherMaimonides'The Guide for the Perplexed in its original language."[3] Since then, most of his work has occurred at the intersection of the threeAbrahamic religions[4] as they developed out of the ancient world, formed themselves in dialogue, and eventually gave rise to modernity.
He has written numerous books on classical and medieval intellectual history, religion, national identity, literature, and law. He is perhaps best known in the English-speaking world for his bookEurope, la voie romaine (1992), translated into English asEccentric Culture: A Theory of Western Civilization (2009). His masterwork thus far is his trilogy on the philosophical development of law in the West,La Sagesse du monde: Histoire de l'expérience humaine de l'univers (1999),La Loi de Dieu. Histoire philosophique d’une alliance (2005), andLe Règne de l'homme: Genèse et échec du projet moderne (2015). They have been translated into English asThe Wisdom of the World: The Human Experience of the Universe in Western Thought (2004),The Law of God: The Philosophical History of an Idea (2007),[5] andThe Kingdom of Man: Genesis and Failure of the Modern Project (2018).
While his intellectual influences are various, Brague has developed some of the chief points of his unique account of Western intellectual history in dialogue with the controversialpolitical theoristLeo Strauss. Brague has said, "Leo Strauss taught me that when reading a text, you must be open to the possibility that it contains different layers of meaning. All philosophical books written beforethe Enlightenment aim at both a wider audience and a small elite, able to understand the deeper meaning of the texts." This approach informed Brague's understanding of Maimonides and the medieval Muslim philosopherAl-Farabi, among others. Still, he declared himself unconvinced "that it applies to the Greek philosophers" in the way Strauss has taught. Brague holds that "Strauss became so convinced of his way of interpreting texts, that he came to apply it to all sorts of books, evenCervantes'Don Quixote. Strauss taught me to read very carefully. But I don't consider myself a Straussian, nor do the real Straussians consider me one of them."[6] Arguably, Brague's "Roman" view of Western Intellectual History (as enunciated inEccentric Culture) responds to Strauss's famous emphasis on the longstanding tension betweenAthens andJerusalem. For Brague, we cannot understand this tension fully without considering the historic mediation of Athens and Jerusalem throughRome.[7] Likewise, Brague's account of Divine Law in the Western intellectual tradition (as presented inThe Law of God) reframes the relationship between faith and reason, the secular and the sacred, in response to Strauss's recurrent emphasis on "the Theological-Political Problem."[8]
^On the role of HeideggerianDasein in Brague’s account of Aristotle, see Sarah Broadie, Review ofAristote et la question du monde.Ancient Philosophy 13.1 (Spring, 1993): 201-204.
^A term Brague deprecates, as each religion understands Abraham, as well as its relation to Abraham, in fundamentally different ways. SeeOn the God of the Christians (And on One or Two Others) (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’ Press, 2013), 9-14.
^See Paul Seaton, “Translator’s Introduction” toThe Legitimacy of the Human (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2017) xi.
^"'Yellow Ants,' Fundamentalists, and Cowboys – An interview with Rémi Brague."The Clarion Review (Oct. 29, 2009). On Brague’s view of Strauss’s Maimonides, see "Leo Strauss and Maimonides," inLeo Strauss’s Thought: Toward a Critical Engagement, ed. Alan Udoff (Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner, 1991), 93-114. On the kinds of texts (esp. Christian ones) to which Straussian interpretation fails to be adequate, see Brague, "Athens, Jerusalem, Mecca: Leo Strauss's 'Muslim' Understanding of Greek Philosophy,”Poetics Today 19.2 (Summer 1998): 235–259.
"The Failure of the Modern Project."The Modern Turn. Ed. Michael Rohlf. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2017. 291–306.
"Culture as a By-Product."Cooperatores Veritatis. Scritti in onore del Papa emerito Benedetto XVI per il 90° compleanno. Rome: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2017. 297–317.
"God and Freedom. Biblical Roots of the Western Idea of Liberty."Christianity and Freedom, Volume 1: Historical Perspectives. Eds. T. S. Shah & A. D. Hertzke. Cambridge; Cambridge University Press, 2017. 391–402.
"Diversity: How Far?"Justice Through Diversity?: A Philosophical and Theological Debate. Ed. M. Sweeney. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016. 159–174.
"Five challenges to European Democracies."After the Storm. How to Save Democracy in Europe. Eds. L. van Middelaar & Ph. Van Parijs Tielt, Belgium: Lannoo, 2015. 43–52.
"Treason or Tradition?"Tradition as the Future of Innovation. Ed. Elisa Grimi. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2015. 96–110.
"The Concept of the Abrahamic Religions, Problems and Pitfalls."The Oxford Handbook of the Abrahamic Religions. Eds. Adam Silverstein, Guy Stroumsa, & Moshe Blidstein. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2015. 88–108.
"Are There as Many Gods as Religions?"Modern Age. 57.3 (Summer 2015) 78–84.
"Epilogue: Camus and Christianity." In Albert Camus,Christian Metaphysics and Neoplatonism. Trans. Ronald Srigley. Notre Dame: St. Augustine's P, 2015. 134–139.ISBN978-1587311147
“On Aristotle’s Formula ὅ pote ὄn: Physics IV. 11, 14." tr. E. R. Jimenez.The Bloomsbury Companion to Aristotle. Ed. C. Baracchi. London: Bloomsbury, 2013. 75–88.
"Natural Law in Islam.”Human Rights and Natural Law: An Intercultural Philosophical Perspective. Ed. Walter Schweidler. Sankt Augustin: Academia-Verlag, 2013. 251–265.
"Christianity: a Fact in History."A Generative Thought: An Introduction to the Works of Luigi Giussani.Ed. E. Buzzi. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2003. 34–39.
"Wasted Time?"Communio.30.1 (Spring 2003) 70–78.
"How to Be in the World: Gnosis, Religion, Philosophy."Martin Buber: A Contemporary Perspective. Ed. Paul R. Mendes-Flohr. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2002. 133–147.
"Facing Reality."Courage. Ed. B. Darling-Smith. South Bend, IN" U of Notre Dame P, 2002. 43–53.
"History of Philosophy as Freedom."Epoché. 7.1 (Fall 2002) 39–50.
"Is Physics Interesting? Some Late Ancient and Medieval Answers."Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal. 23.2 (2002) 183–201.
"Is European Culture 'a Tale of Two Cities'?".Historical, Cultural, Socio-political, and Economic Perspectives on Europe.Ed. Suzanne Stern-Gillet and M. Teresa Lunati. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 2000. 33–50.
"Are we at Home in the World?"The Longing for Home. Ed. L. Rouner. U of Notre Dame P, 1997. 95–111.
"Cosmological Mysticism: The Imitation of the Heavenly Bodies in Ibn Tufayl's Hayy ibn Yaqzan."Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal.19.2 / 20.1 (1997) 91–102.
"Geocentrism as a Humiliation for Man."Medieval Encounters. 3.3 (1997) 187–210.
"A Medieval Model of Subjectivity: Toward a Rediscovery of Fleshliness."The Ancients and the Moderns. Ed. R. Lilly. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1996. 230–247.
"The Impotence of the Word: The God Who Has Said It All."Diogenes. 170 (1995) 43–68.
"Leo Strauss and Maimonides."Leo Strauss's Thought: Towards a Critical Engagement. Ed. Alan Udoff. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1991. 93–114.
"The soul of salvation."Communio.14.3 (Fall 1987).
"The Body of the Speech: A New Hypothesis on the Compositional Structure of Timaeus's Monologue."Platonic Investigations. Ed. D.J. O'Meara. Washington, D.C.: Catholic UP, 1985. 53–83.
"On the Christian Model of Unity: The Trinity."Communio 10 (1983): 149–166.
"Radical Modernity and the Roots of Ancient Thought."Independent Journal of Philosophy. 4 (1983) 63–74.
