Raymond Klibansky: A Life in Philosophy

by Raymond Klibansky, Peter Feldstein (Translator), Raymond Klibansky

Born in Paris in 1905 to a German-Jewish family from Frankfurt and dying a century later in Montreal, Raymond Klibansky lived a life indelibly coloured by the history of the twentieth century. His thought shaped and was shaped by intellectual currents both European and American, and his scholarly work entailed an intellectual reckoning with tradition that was unique in its scope and ambition, long before talk of academic interdisciplinarity. Klibansky, a student of Karl Jaspers and Ernst Cassirer, was educated in the liberal milieu of the Weimar Republic. Forced to emigrate from Germany in 1933, Klibansky spent the war years in London, where he participated in the British war effort. Working in the tradition established by Aby Warburg and the Warburg Library, he completed with Erwin Panofsky and Fritz Saxl the German text of Saturn and Melancholy. The book’s cast metal type was reclaimed for the war effort before it could be printed, but it was eventually published in English in 1964 and has deeply influenced understandings of the interrelations between humanities disciplines ever since. After the war Klibansky came to McGill University, where he enjoyed a brilliant career as a scholar of platonic studies and the history of ideas, mainly in the works of Locke and Hume. Over twelve chapters, each devoted to questions that were dear to Klibansky during his long life, Georges Leroux presents dialogues with his mentor selected from decades of conversation, exploring themes including philosophical traditions, melancholy, tolerance, peace, and the role of philosophy in international relations. Scholarship, interlinked with the events of a turbulent century, is at the centre of these fascinating conversations between student and teacher. A richly illustrated autobiography through dialogue, Raymond Klibanskyis a portrait of a heroic figure in twentieth-century philosophy, a model for a younger generation who can find in his scholarship an admirable example of virtue in the service of peace.

300 pages, Hardcover

Published September 16, 2025

About the author

Raymond Klibansky, CC GOQ (October 15, 1905 – August 5, 2005) was a German-Canadian historian of philosophy.

Born in Paris, to Rosa Scheidt and Hermann Klibansky, he was educated at the University of Kiel, University of Hamburg and Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg, where he received a Ph.D. in 1928. From 1927 to 1933 he was an assistant at the Heidelberg Academy and from 1931 until 1933 he was a lecturer in philosophy at the University of Heidelberg. In 1933 he was no longer able to teach since he was a Jew.

In 1933 he moved with his family to Italy and then to Brussels finally setting in Oxford, where he was a lecturer at Oriel College, Oxford from 1936 until 1946. He became a British citizen in 1938, and during the Second World War was attached to the Political Warfare Executive, based at Woburn Abbey. He worked at first on Germany, then on preparation for the allied invasion of Italy, and after the war on the denazification programme in Germany.

In 1946 Klibansky became the Frothingham Professor of Logic and Metaphysics at McGill University; he also lectured at the Université de Montréal.

From 1966 to 1969 he was President of the International Institute of Philosophy, and subsequently its honorary president. He was a fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford from 1981 to 1995 and thereafter an honorary fellow of that college.

In 1999 he was made a Grand Officer of the National Order of Quebec. In 2000 he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada in recognition for being "one of the greatest intellectuals of our time".

The Raymond Klibansky Prize is awarded each year for the best books in the humanities that have received support from the Aid to Scholarly Publications Programme (ASPP), part of the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences. One prize each is awarded to the best English book and the best French book. (wiki)