Xavier Tilliette (23 July 1921 – 10 December 2018) was a French philosopher, historian of philosophy, theologian, and Jesuit Catholic priest. A former student of Jean Wahl and of Vladimir Jankélévitch, he was a member of the Society of Jesus (1938) and professor emeritus at the Catholic Institute of Paris (1969), having taught also at the Pontifical Gregorian University of Rome (1972), the Lateran University, and the Centre Sèvres in Paris.

Biography

Xavier Tilliette also taught philosophy at various universities as a "visiting professor" in France and abroad: Lima, Santiago, Berlin, Bremen, Fribourg, Heidelberg, Hamburg, Munich, Bonn, Tübingen, Turin, Ferrara, Urbino, Rome, Macerata, Naples, Palermo. He spoke fluent English, Italian, German and Spanish, in addition to Latin, Greek and Hebrew, and he read Portuguese and Danish. A specialist in Schelling and Jaspers, he has been developing since the 1970s a "philosophical Christology" which he initiated. In the tradition of Schelling and of Maurice Blondel, he defended and illustrated the idea of a Christian philosophy born from Revelation. He was also a specialist of Claudel, of phenomenology (Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty), and of German idealism. Xavier Tilliette was twice winner of a prize from the French Academy. Several of his works were translated into English, Italian, German, and Spanish. Among his teachers, disciples, or friends, along with Wahl and Jankélévitch, were Hans Urs von Balthasar, Karl Rahner, Henri de Lubac, Gaston Fessard, Hans Georg Gadamer, Jürgen Habermas, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jean-Paul Sartre, Louis Bouyer, Jean Daniélou, Emmanuel Levinas, Paul Ricœur, Gabriel Marcel, Ambroise-Marie Carré, Yves Congar, Michel de Certeau, Stanislas Fumet, Maurice de Gandillac, Paul Doncœur, Pierre Blet, Marcel Brion, Robert Bresson, Enrico Castelli, Luigi Pareyson, Giuseppe Riconda, Michel Henry, Claude Bruaire, Jean Greisch, François Varillon, Albert Vanhoye, Jean-Luc Marion, Jean-Louis Vieillard-Baron, Francesco Tomatis. He was a member of the Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici and of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities (Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften of Munich), the Centro studi filosofico-religiosi Luigi Pareyson, and, since 2006, a corresponding member Accademia di estetica internazionale de Rapallo. Xavier Tilliette was knight of the Légion d'honneur and of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic. Tilliette died in Paris on 10 December 2018 at the age of 97.

Selected bibliography

Xavier Tilliette wrote more than 2,000 essays, books, or articles; his more comprehensive bibliography contains over 250 pages. Books in French With other authors Written in Italian or in German Essays published in the following reviews