Fernand Brunner was a Swiss philosopher. After studying in Lausanne

Lausanne

Lausanne is a city in Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and is the capital of the canton of Vaud. The seat of the district of Lausanne, the city is situated on the shores of Lake Geneva . It faces the French town of Évian-les-Bains, with the Jura mountains to its north-west...

 and in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, became a professor at the University of Neuchâtel

University of Neuchâtel

The University of Neuchâtel is a French-speaking university in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. The University has five faculties and more than a dozen institutes, including arts and human sciences, natural sciences, law, economics and theology. The Faculty of Arts and Human Sciences is the largest...

.

He united philosophical introspection with the study of the History of Philosophy

History of philosophy

The history of philosophy is the study of philosophical ideas and concepts through time. Issues specifically related to history of philosophy might include : How can changes in philosophy be accounted for historically? What drives the development of thought in its historical context? To what...

 in a personalized manner. He was interested in ancient history

Ancient history

Ancient history is the study of the written past from the beginning of recorded human history to the Early Middle Ages. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, with Cuneiform script, the oldest discovered form of coherent writing, from the protoliterate period around the 30th century BC...

, the Middle Ages

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

, the Modern era, traditional Arab and Jewish

Jewish philosophy

Jewish philosophy , includes all philosophy carried out by Jews, or, in relation to the religion of Judaism. Jewish philosophy, until modern Enlightenment and Emancipation, was pre-occupied with attempts to reconcile coherent new ideas into the tradition of Rabbinic Judaism; thus organizing...

 philosophies, as well as ideas from India, studying the differences between philosophy and tradition. Among Western traditions, he was particularly interested in the plato

Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...

nic and neoplatonic

Neoplatonism

Neoplatonism , is the modern term for a school of religious and mystical philosophy that took shape in the 3rd century AD, based on the teachings of Plato and earlier Platonists, with its earliest contributor believed to be Plotinus, and his teacher Ammonius Saccas...

 traditions, in Meister Eckhart

Meister Eckhart

Eckhart von Hochheim O.P. , commonly known as Meister Eckhart, was a German theologian, philosopher and mystic, born near Gotha, in the Landgraviate of Thuringia in the Holy Roman Empire. Meister is German for "Master", referring to the academic title Magister in theologia he obtained in Paris...

, in Solomon Ibn Gabirol

Solomon ibn Gabirol

Solomon ibn Gabirol, also Solomon ben Judah , was an Andalucian Hebrew poet and Jewish philosopher with a Neoplatonic bent. He was born in Málaga about 1021; died about 1058 in Valencia.-Biography:...

, and in Leibniz.

He defended the idea that philosophy was linked to wisdom, and that the history of philosophy was strictly linked to philosophy itself. In his work about science and reality, he criticized the foundations of modern science, which he countered with the importance of philosophy.

Works

• Études sur la signification historique de la philosophie de Leibniz, Vrin, Paris, 1950
• Ibn Gabirol, La source de vie, livre III, trad., Vrin, Paris, 1950
• Science et réalité, Aubier, Paris, 1954
• Platonisme et aristotélisme; La critique d'Ibn Gabirol par Saint Thomas d'Aquin, Nauwelaerts, Louvain, Paris, 1965
• Maître Eckhart, Seghers, Paris, 1969
• Introduction à la philosophie, Éditions du Grand Midi, Zurich, 1995