Mikel Dufrenne (; 9 February 1910, Clermont, Oise – 10 June 1995, Paris) was a French philosopher and aesthetician. He is known as an author of existentialism and is particularly noted for the work The Phenomenology of Aesthetic Experience (Phénoménologie de l'expérience esthétique, 1953).
He encountered the work of Karl Jaspers while being a prisoner of war in a camp with Paul Ricœur. Dufrenne and Ricœur later collaborated on a book on Jaspers.International Lexicon of Aesthetics website, Mikel Dufrenne
He founded the Department of Philosophy at the University of Paris. His students included Daniel Charles and Louis Marin.
He was also president of the Société Française d’Esthétique for over 20 years.
Works Karl Jaspers et la philosophie de l'existence, 1947 Phénoménologie de l'expérience esthétique, 1953; Eng. tr., The Phenomenology of Aesthetic Experience (1973)Northwestern University Press website, The Phenomenology of Aesthetic Experience La personnalité de base, 1953 La Notion d'a priori, 1959; Engl. tr., The Notion of the A Priori (1966)Google Books website, The Notion of the A Priori Jalons, 1966 La philosophie du néopositivisme, 1967 Pour l'homme, 1968 (with Paul Ricœur) Karl Jaspers et la philosophie de l'existence (1974) Esthétique et philosophie (two volumes, 1976)GoodReads website, Mikel Dufrenne
References
Further reading Robert Magliola, "Part II, Chapter 3: Mikel Dufrenne," Phenomenology and Literature (Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press, 1977; 1978), pp. 142–173 (this influential work explained for the English-language academic world the role of Dufrenne in the formulation of "phenomenological literary theory and criticism"; it also supplied, for hermeneutical philosophy, a chapter-by-chapter description and critique of Dufrenne's monumental Phénoménologie de l'expérience esthétique). See Jean-Baptiste Dussert and Adnen Jdey (ed.), Mikel Dufrenne et l'esthétique: entre phénoménologie et philosophie de la Nature, Rennes (France), Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2016 (this book is the first collection of essays devoted to all the aspects of Dufrennes's aesthetic).