Stelios Ramfos, one of the most widely read and debated Greek philosophers of the modern era, died on Monday at the age ...

Stelios Ramfos, one of the most widely read and debated Greek philosophers of the modern era, died on Monday at the age of 87. His death was confirmed by the Greek press. Over a career spanning more than half a century, Ramfos published over 30 books and shaped intellectual debate in Greece more than perhaps any other public thinker of his generation. Born in Greece, he started law studies at the University of Athens before leaving in 1965 to study philosophy in Paris at Université Paris 8, where he later taught as a professor from 1969 to 1974. He returned to Greece in 1975 and spent the following decades writing, lecturing, and appearing regularly in the media, including television interviews and widely attended public talks. His intellectual trajectory was anything but straight. In his early years he was aligned with the Greek left, involved with the youth wing of EDA and the student publication Panspoudastiki, before breaking from that world entirely by 1963. In Paris he came under the influence of Cornelius Castoriadis and deepened his engagement with Orthodox Christian thought. Back in Greece, through the 1980s, his name became closely associated with the neo-Orthodox current in Greek intellectual life alongside thinkers like Christos Yannaras and Zisimos Lorenzatos, a movement focused on the cultural tension between East and West. By the 1990s he shifted again, adopting modernizing positions and arguing that certain aspects of traditional Greek mentality were holding the country back from progress. That willingness to diagnose Greece's collective failures made him a polarizing but unavoidable voice in public life, influencing both the intellectual elite and broader public opinion for decades. He taught at institutions including the Goulandris-Horn Foundation and the Vasilis and Marina Theocharakis Foundation. #Greece #Philosophy #Ramfos