Jean Borella
Jean Borella is a Christian philosopher and theologian. Borella's works are inspired by Ancient and Christian Neoplatonism, but also by the Traditionalist School of René Guénon and Frithjof Schuon.
Biography
Borella's father, who was Italian, made a career in military aviation before his death in 1937 in an air crash, when Jean was seven years old. Borella's mother was French from Lorraine. Borella had a Catholic education and traditional public school secondary studies which reinforced in him the idea that he would be a defender of the faith. By age 14, Borella understood Cartesian proof of the existence of God. In 1950, he stayed for a short while in a Benedictine monastery, but left, disappointed.Borella attended university in Nancy, France. Two of Borella's philosophy professors had significant influence on him, Georges Vallin and Guy Bugault. Vallin, French orientalist and philosopher, primarily taught the principles of Vedanta, while Bugault taught Hindu and Buddhist philosophy. Borella graduated in 1953 with a degree in philosophy, and, in the same year, became familiar with the work of René Guénon, and later with the work of Frithjof Schuon.
In 1954, Borella married a Polish woman. By 1957, he was a professor of philosophy in Gérardmer. From 1962 to 1977, he taught philosophy and literature in preparatory classes in Nancy, and from 1977 until his retirement in 1995, metaphysics and medieval philosophy at the University of Nancy II. In 1982, he defended his doctoral thesis at the Paris Nanterre University, entitled Metaphysical Foundations of Sacred Symbolism: Philosophical Prolegomena, under the supervision of Paul Ricœur.