PHILOSOPHER

Roland Barthes

1915 - 1980

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Roland Gérard Barthes (; French: [ʁɔlɑ̃ baʁt]; 12 November 1915 – 25 March 1980) was a French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. His work engaged in the analysis of a variety of sign systems, mainly derived from Western popular culture. His ideas explored a diverse range of fields and influenced the development of multiple schools of theory, including structuralism, anthropology, literary theory, and post-structuralism. Barthes is perhaps best known for his 1957 essay collection Mythologies, which contained reflections on popular culture, and the 1967/1968 essay "The Death of the Author", which critiqued traditional approaches in literary criticism. Read more on Wikipedia

His biography is available in different languages on Wikipedia. Roland Barthes is the 82nd most popular philosopher (up from 104th in 2019), the 147th most popular biography from France (up from 208th in 2019) and the 8th most popular French Philosopher.

Roland Barthes is most famous for his book "The Death of the Author." In this book, he argues that the author's intention is not the final word on a text. Rather, the text should be interpreted and analyzed from the perspective of the reader.

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Among PHILOSOPHERS

Among philosophers, Roland Barthes ranks 82 out of 1,267. Before him are Al-Kindi, Nicholas of Cusa, Rudolf Steiner, Gregory of Nazianzus, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, and Karl Jaspers. After him are Herbert Spencer, Ludwig Feuerbach, Theophrastus, Porphyry, Athanasius of Alexandria, and Rudolf Christoph Eucken.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1915, Roland Barthes ranks 6. Before him are Édith Piaf, Augusto Pinochet, Vasily Zaitsev, Charles H. Townes, and Frank Sinatra. After him are Ingrid Bergman, Anthony Quinn, Moshe Dayan, Norman Foster Ramsey Jr., Orson Welles, and Arthur Miller. Among people deceased in 1980, Roland Barthes ranks 9. Before him are Karl Dönitz, John Lennon, Jean Piaget, Alfred Hitchcock, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and Erich Fromm. After him are Steve McQueen, Bon Scott, Oskar Kokoschka, Jesse Owens, Colonel Sanders, and Henry Miller.

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In France

Among people born in France, Roland Barthes ranks 147 out of 6,770. Before him are Charles IX of France (1550), Pope Clement IV (1190), Jean Cocteau (1889), Évariste Galois (1811), Bernard of Clairvaux (1090), and Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122). After him are Charles I of Anjou (1226), Gérard Depardieu (1948), Paul Verlaine (1844), Jean-François Champollion (1790), Jacques Lacan (1901), and Charles VIII of France (1470).

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Among PHILOSOPHERS In France

Among philosophers born in France, Roland Barthes ranks 8. Before him are Montesquieu (1689), Auguste Comte (1798), Michel de Montaigne (1533), Michel Foucault (1926), Henri Bergson (1859), and Peter Abelard (1079). After him are Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809), Jean Bodin (1530), Gilles Deleuze (1925), Henri de Saint-Simon (1760), Simone Weil (1909), and Charles Fourier (1772).

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