Mihailo Đurić (Serbian Cyrillic: Михаило Ђурић; 22 August 1925 – 25 November 2011) was one of Serbia's most prominent philosophers.[1] He was a professor at the University of Belgrade's Law School and member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts.
Within the frame of ancient Greek culture, he studied philosophy, law, politics and history, but also modern political theory and ethics. A majority of his works are within the field of philosophy and method of sociology, history of political theories and political science. In the past two decades, his work was mainly devoted to the study of Nietzsche and Heidegger.
Đurić studied law, philosophy and classic philology in Belgrade, where he obtained his PhD with the thesis on Ideas of the Natural Law in Greek Sophists (1954).[1] He was professor at Law School from 1954 until 1973, when, for political reasons, he was removed from the University. In 1954 he was appointed as Research Fellow at the University of Belgrade's Law School, where he was later promoted to Assistant Professor in 1957, Associate Professor in 1964, and full Professor in 1969. He taught History of Political Theory, General Sociology and Methodology of Social Science.
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In 1972, Mihailo Đurić was expelled from University, tried[2] and sentenced to 9 months in prison for his criticism of the 1971 Constitutional Amendments as well as his opposition to demolishing of the Petar Petrović Njegoš chapel on Mount Lovćen.[3] The discussion at the Law Faculty was delivered in a public discussion within the University building and the article on Njegoš in a literary review written in opposition to the destruction.
During his trial and imprisonment, many public figures expressed their opposition to then Yugoslav communist government, among them philosopher Ernst Bloch.
After the release from prison Đurić was formally employed at the Institute of Social Sciences in Belgrade, from 1974 until 1989, when he returned to University. From his release from prison (1972), he was also a visiting professor at the Universities of Vienna, Berlin and Augsburg. In 1991, after rehabilitation, he returned to Law School. For many years Đurić was a member of the Institute of Philosophy at the University of Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy, the Scientific Council of which he chaired from 1986 until 1998.
Starting from 80s, Đurić's writings both in Serbian and in German fundamentally contributed to our understanding of the works of Nietzsche and Heidegger and the crucial link between these two philosophers. While his Nietzsche and the Metaphysics (1984) and The Challenge of Nihilism (1986) concentrate mainly on Nietzsche, the On the Need of Philosophy Today: Philosophy between East and West is mainly a book about Heidegger and his reading of Nietzsche.