14 Facts About Henry Corbin

Henry Corbin was a French philosopher, theologian, and Iranologist, professor of Islamic studies at the Ecole pratique des hautes etudes.

Henry Corbin was influential in extending the modern study of traditional Islamic philosophy from early falsafa to later and "mystical" figures such as Suhrawardi, Ibn Arabi, and Mulla Sadra Shirazi.

Henry Corbin studied modern philosophy, including hermeneutics and phenomenology, becoming the first French translator of Martin Heidegger.

Henry Corbin regularly spent time in Iran, working with Shia thinkers such as Muhammad Husayn Tabatabai and Seyyed Hossein Nasr.

Henry Corbin became prominent in the European Eranos circle of scholars initiated by Carl Jung, whose theories he appreciated.

The philosophical life and career of Henry Corbin can be divided into three phases.

In 1949, Henry Corbin first attended the annual Eranos Conferences in Ascona, Switzerland.

Henry Corbin considered himself a Protestant Christian but he abandoned a Christocentric view of history.

Henry Corbin defended the central role assigned in theology for the individual as the finite image of the Unique Divine.

Henry Corbin's mysticism is no world-denying asceticism but regards all of Creation as a theophany of the divine.

Henry Corbin's ideas have continued through colleagues, students and others influenced by his work.

Henry Corbin influenced Peter Lamborn Wilson who studied under Corbin whilst in Iran who would go on to publish reviews on Corbin's work in the first publication of the journal Temenos by the Temenos Academy in 1981.

Henry Corbin was an important source for the archetypal psychology of James Hillman and others who have developed the psychology of Carl Jung.

The American literary critic Harold Bloom claims Henry Corbin as a significant influence on his own conception of Gnosticism, and the American poet Charles Olson was a student of Henry Corbin's Avicenna and the Visionary Recital.