Raymond Klibansky

Who was Raymond Klibansky?

Raymond Klibansky, CC GOQ 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.