In 1922 he started studying philosophy at the École normale supérieure in Paris, under Professor Bergson.
He returned to France in 1933, where he taught at the Lycée du Parc in Lyon and at many universities, including Toulouse and Lille.
After the war, in 1951, he was appointed to the chair of Moral Philosophy at the Sorbonne (Paris I after 1971), where he taught until 1978.
He was life long friends with phenomenologist, Emmanuel Levinas, although Jankélévitch is not generally considered to be in the phenomenological tradition himself, but rather a bergsonian and continuing the French spiritualist traditions going back to Rousseau and Maine de Biran.While Bergson's philosophy was a recurring theme throughout his life, Jankélévitch is considered an original thinker, especially in moral philosophy and the areas of musicology and philosophy of music.
The extreme subtlety of his thought is apparent throughout his works where the very slightest gradations are assigned great importance.