1940 in philosophy

Events

• July - Jean-Paul Sartre is taken prisoner by the Germans.^[1]
• September 26 or 27 – Walter Benjamin, literary critic and writer, died at the age of 48 when he committed suicide in an effort to avoid capture by the Gestapo.^[2]

Publications

• G. H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology (1940)
• Nicolai Hartmann, Der Aufbau der realen Welt (published in German in 1940; not yet translated into English)
• Arnold Gehlen, Man: His Nature and Place in the World (1940)

Births

• May 7 - Michael Allen Fox
• June 21 - Michael Ruse
• July 26 - Jean-Luc Nancy
• August 20 - Jacques Bouveresse
• November 13 - Saul Kripke
• November 27 - Bruce Lee (died 1973)
• T. M. Scanlon (unspecified)
• Tu Weiming (unspecified)
• Fatema Mernissi (unspecified)
• Michael Jackson (unspecified)

Deaths

• March 1 - A. H. Tammsaare (born 1878)
• May 14 - Emma Goldman (born 1869)
• August 21 - Leon Trotsky (born 1879)
• September 26 - Walter Benjamin see Events section above^[3]