Vladimir Jankélévitch, the French moral philosopher, was born in Bourges. He was educated at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand and the École Normale Supérieure. Having become an agrégé in philosophy in 1926, he took his doctorate in 1933. After teaching at the French Institute in Prague and at various lycées, he served as lecturer at Toulouse from 1936 to 1937 and at Lille from 1938 to 1939. He was dismissed by the Vichy government in 1940 but returned to academic life in 1945 as professor at Lille, going from there to the University of Paris as professor of morals and moral philosophy.

Jankélévitch's philosophy is highly individual, though it displays a sympathetic understanding of widely divergent philosophical traditions. In content it has affinities with Christian morality and with the philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard...