EMILIO LLEDÓ

Born in Seville and raised in Madrid, Emilio Lledó is a brilliant philosopher whose work on the interpretation of the philosophical sources is invaluable for understanding our history and our society. Thus, I would like to dedicate this post to him.

He quotes his teacher Francisco as the influentia force for him that made him want to progress in life, in spite of the misery and hardships forced by the Spanish Civil War, that he suffered. His academic background includes a BA from the University of Madrid, from where he left to Germany to escape the post-war situation and to improve his education in German classical philosophy, tutored by specialists.

Emilio Lledó research has brought him accolades and positions such as the membership of the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin, his work at the Free University of that German city, at the Spanish UNED and as an active member of the Royal Spanish Academy of Language, among others.

He understands philosophy, thought and language as ways to settle in society or in nature, as the ways of being in the world. Thus, the history of philosophy is equivalent to our historical memory —necessary to understand ourselves as human and social beings.

In his books (i.e., ‘Philosophy and Language’, ‘The Silence of Writing’, ‘In Praise of Unhappiness’ and ‘Philosophy Today’) we distinguish his sources: Plato and Aristotle’s Greek classical philosophy, the postwar thought and Hermeneutics, the one with the willingness to interpret and disseminate ideas for their understanding and implementation.

These major influences can be noticed into the following excerpts from his work:

Studying has to be creating freedom, not dogmatism or idioms. Stereotypes, for the thoughtless, cause aggression. One of the benefits generated by cultivated ignorance is violence.

 

In the classic texts by the Greeks, Plato and Aristotle defined three levels: first, the care of the mind; second, for the body and the third, wealth, money, goods. A nation, a country, a world that interferes these three levels and puts the economy as the highest good is a lost world, annihilated, without hope.

 

Although it sounds utopian, we shoud lead to genuine regeneration and that regeneration has to start in the head. The real revolution is in the head. Nothing is worse than the corruption of the mind; economy’s comes just after.

 

Education is free, education is possibility.

 

Responsibility is that real answer to the problems.

 

Life is a path that is going to go through channels where you feel a certain solidarity with the people who are with you and make up your time.

 

The principle of loving relationships has to do with the relationship we have with ourselves. I have to look myself in the mirror to recognize my other [alter ego] in a friend.

 

Reading is freedom, it allows us to go beyond ourselves, our tiny environment, and to open up a new universe.

 

We all need a corner of happiness, friendship and affection. That is as essential as food for humans, but there are times when you can not wallow in your own happiness as satisfied gentlemen, times when it is imposed to fight for something that will hinder unhappiness around us.

 

To be happy we must start the club, you have to be good and to be good you have to have a home, be well-fed, to have solved the body’s necessities, which is what we really are. But then you have to aspire to ‘well-exist’.

I wish you a very happy and instructive week.

Álex Rovira