- Louis Gernet
Louis Gernet, 1882 - 1962, was a French philologist and sociologist.
Life
A student at the
École Normale Supérieure (class of 1902), he received alicentiate in law andagrégation in grammar. In 1917, supported by theFondation Thiers , he received his doctorate in letters with a dissertation entitled "Researches on the development of legal and moral thought in Greece".For a long time he led a modest academic career, devoted to teaching Greek at the
University of Algiers . In 1948, at the age of 66, he went to the seminary of legal sociology at theÉcole Pratique des Hautes Études to teach ancient Greek anthropology. From 1949 to 1961 he was editor of the journal "L'Année sociologique", to which he also contributed under the heading "Legal and moral sociology".In 1964, two years after Gernet's death, his pupil
Jean-Pierre Vernant founded theCentre Louis-Gernet , a centre for the comparative study of ancient societies which is attached to theÉcole des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales .Principal works
* "Recherches sur le développement de la pensée juridique en Grèce ancienne", 1917 (doctoral dissertation; republ. Albin Michel, 2001)
* WithAndré Boulanger : "Le Génie grec dans la religion" (Albin Michel), 1932
* "Droit et société dans la Grèce ancienne", 1955
* "Anthropologie de la Grèce antique" (Maspéro), 1968Gernet also translated and wrote commentaries on the speeches of
Lysias , and books 1 and 2 ofPlato 's "Laws".References
* Georges Davy, "Hommage à Louis Gernet rendu au Collège de France" (Paris), 1966
* Riccardo Di Donato, "L’anthropologie historique de Louis Gernet", "Annales ESC", Sep.-Dec. 1982: 984-96
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