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From Budapest to Paris (1936–1957)
An Autobiography
An Argo Book
by Miklos Veto
Foreword by Peter Ochs
Translated by Rajat D. Acharya
Imprint: Resource Publications
This book is a searching reflection by one of the important philosophers of our time upon his own life and identity, interwoven with history, religion and culture. Born in 1936 in Budapest, Miklos Veto was a firsthand witness and protagonist of the great events of the twentieth century: as a child he lost his parents during the Holocaust, and then took part in the anti-Soviet Revolution of 1956, after which he escaped through Yugoslavian refugee camps and arrived in France. At the age of seventeen, he encountered Catholic faith through an intense spiritual experience. After studying at the Sorbonne in Paris and in Oxford, Veto undertook an academic career which spanned three continents, teaching at Yale and other universities in the United States, becoming director of the Department of Philosophy of the University of Abidjan (Ivory Coast), and settling back in France, with his wife and three children. He never lost contact with his native Hungary, where his contribution was recognized after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and in 2008 he was named exterior member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. This autobiography presents especially the founding period of Veto's life, with a "postface" on the last sixty years.
Miklos Veto (1936–2020) was a Hungarian-born French philosopher who taught successively at Marquette, Yale, Abidjan, Rennes, and Poitiers Universities. Widely known as a historian of German Idealism, his works have been translated into many languages. He is the author of The Religious Metaphysics of Simone Weil and The Expansion of Metaphysics.
“This is the most riveting autobiography from a contemporary philosopher I have yet read. More than the growth of a mind, it is the growth of soul.”
—Kenneth L. Woodward, former Religion Editor of Newsweek, author of Getting Religion
“This fascinating memoir tells of the early years and personal struggles of an important French-Hungarian philosopher. A Jewish child, growing up in Budapest during World War II, becomes a student activist at the time of the Hungarian revolution of 1956. A religious conversion plays a central role. This moving story is told with wit and humor.”
—David Carr, Emory University
“Miklos Vetö . . . now adds to more than twenty books on philosophy and spirituality a moving and humorous account of his colorful life.”
—Rémi Brague, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich
“Miklos Vetö’s life is a kind of puzzle: a Jewish childhood in pre-war Hungary, racist persecutions and family bereavements, studies during the Communist regime, conversion to Christianity, the wanderings of a foreign exile, major works in philosophy, teaching over three continents, family life in the haven of France . . . Bringing together the pieces of such a puzzle, this book provides an insight to a sympathetic figure who is passionately curious about the world of ideas and men, unified by a desire for knowledge which is a form of charity.”
—Jean-Robert Armogathe, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris
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