María Zambrano's Philosophy

María Zambrano's Philosophy

• Zambrano wrote "Pensamiento y poesía en la vida española" during her exile in Mexico.
• The book analyzes Spain's identity crisis after the Civil War.
• It advocates for "poetic reason" to reconcile heart and reason.
• Zambrano meditates on the failure of Spain and Western philosophy.
• Rescuing the memory of exile is key to healing wounds.
• Moving forward and understanding national and philosophical failures is vital.

A New Philosophical Beginning

• Need to restore philosophy's original connection to poetry.
• It explores Spanish literary and philosophical traditions.
• Considers naturalism, realism, materialism, and mysticism.
• Includes the Generation of '98 and the Institución Libre de Enseñanza.

Crisis and the Modern World

• There is a need to combine reason, emotion, philosophy, and poetry.
• This would heal the Spanish soul, wounded by wars and ideology.
• "Poetic reason" can recover the world.
• It transcends rigidity, arrogance, and violence of traditional rationalism.
• Traditional rationalism is responsible for fractures in European culture.

Addressing the "Problem of Spain"

• Modernization has led to a disconnection from the spiritual and poetic dimension.
• The loss of humanities and focus on utilitarianism reveals a crisis of meaning.
• A more interior, embodied thought is a response.
• Revaluing daily experience can reconcile us with what is essentially human.
• The proposal suggests a way out of the spiritual exile imposed by rationality.

The Crisis of European Rationalism

• Poetry, reality, and history are intrinsically linked.
• Traditional philosophy separated them by seeking an ideal over reality.
• Idealistic philosophy created a "world beyond" offering security.
• It was based on the static, conceptual, and logical, excluding the subjective.
• Reason provided certainty, structuring the world clearly.
• Rejecting those who defied categorization, Zambrano champions figures like Anaximander and Heraclitus.
• Western philosophy tried to eliminate uncertainty, creating "other worlds."
• This led to a moral focus on permanence and unity, condemning change in favor of eternity.

Philosophy's Roots

• Philosophy has roots in admiration and violence.
• Admiration connects us, but violence "discovers" and subdues.
• This leads to systematic European thought, though Spain resists it.

The Divergence Between Rationalism and Poetic Thought

• Philosophy seeks to console, cure suffering, incompleteness, and emptiness.
• Poetry embraces the world and recognizes limitations.
• It doesn't reform the world but accepts complexity, suffering, and finitude.
• Poetry considers reality, including human failure, a mystery.

Rational Knowledge vs. Authentic Knowledge

• European rational knowledge seeks to dominate reality.
• It promotes the illusion of total knowledge.
• Thinking must balance exploration with humility, accepting its limits.
• If Spain adopts extreme rationalism, it loses fluidity.

Exclusion of the Subjective

• Western philosophy excludes subjectivity and the irrational.
• This impoverishes human experience.
• Experiences such as sensations and feelings are not rationalizable.
• "Poetic reason" integrates emotion, intuition, creativity, and sensibility.
• The poetic language is truer to human complexity.

Contrasting Views

• The European philosophy seeks a dominating and violent truth.
• The Spanish way is authentic, revealing, and participatory.
• Spanish thought integrates the irrational and subjective.
• Literature has been key to revealing the Spanish soul.

The Essence of Poetry

• Poetry is a vital attitude, uniting the sensory, emotional, and spiritual.
• It transcends reason, perceiving the totality, the inexplicable.
• The poet embodies reconciles the poetic, philosophical, and historic.
• He seeks integration like the mystic.
• The poet must love life in all its forms.
• This is a reflection on time, death, love, and the desire.
• It defines the impossible as a horizon as a characteristic of the Spanish.

Cultural Position

• Spanish culture balances philosophical rationalism and poetry.
• Poetic knowledge allows connection with the universe.
• Participation in both the human and transcendental is allowed.
• It connects rationality and emotion, illuminating reality intuitively.
• This is a form of wisdom valuing intuition, revelation, and participation.
• It respects the mystery of things, seeking a unified comprehension.

Poetic Knowledge

• Poetic knowledge doesn't separate humans from reality.
• It participates, revealing truth freely.
• Zambrano describes this as an encounter, a poetic revelation.
• It gives a unitary vision, opposing fragmentation and ignorance .

The Union of Human and Divine

• Spanish poetic thought unites the human and divine.
• Truth is revealed through openness and humility.
• The human doesn't impose intellect but allows itself to be touched.
• This is an act of surrender, giving access to revealed truth.
• Unity is maintained with nature and the divine.

Poetic Reason: An Alternative Approach

• "Poetic reason" is an alternative to purely instrumental reason.
• It unites the emotional, symbolic, sensible, and irrational with the logical.
• This thinking considers clarity and what lies beyond rationality.
• It reconciles rational and poetic knowledge, respecting reality without imposing a single vision.
• Poetic reason offers a more complete and profound look at humanity.

Incorporating Poetic Sensitivity

• It is key to understanding human experience.
• Poetic reason is characterized by emotion, creativity, and imagination.
• It is open to the inexplicable, and relates to the human experience with reality.
• It acts as a tool of resistance against oppression

Elements of "Poetic Reason"

• Qualities expressing the essence of a thing, triggering an intuition through a non-rational contact.
• The divine is a reminder of inspiration that reveals the mystery of existence.
• The depths symbolize emotions and desires.
• The poetic reasons lets us be guided towards identity and knowledge.

Symbolism: Connecting the Past, Present, and Future

• The horizon symbolizes what is wanted, something that is always desired as we seek to become.
• The obstacles represent the challenges of growth and change
• The road represents where are personal truth is, connecting to who we are and who we could be

Spanish Life and Melancholy

• Spanish life is connected to reality and constant change.
• The melancholy intensifies appreciation of the present.
• Melancholy is a way of fully living each moment.

Absence and Presence

• Absence of the lost is an allusion to hope.
• These feelings represents the temporality of existence as forms of possession, even when something is gone.

The Nature of the Spanish

• The Spanish live with a painful passion for escaping time as life oscillates between hope and melancholy.
• This balance gives intensity to life, making fulfillment unachievable.

Connecting with History

• A disconnection from the past hinders the search for meaning.
• A collective amnesia fragments identity as it seeks to reconnect with cultural heritage
• They must embrace their present.

Spanish Stoicism

• Stoicism emphasizes acceptance and fate.
• It has shaped the Spanish temperament, offering resistance and strength.
• Spain accepts with emotional intensity to reveal the vision of life and death

Influences on Spanish Life

• The persistence on fate seeks to transcend suffering.
• Calderón de la Barca's literature shows human conditions through inner suffering.
• The dualities of life show growth with dignity and hope

How to deal with Historical Change

• The relation between time and our existence can relate to our history together, which can influence our lives.
• Although the masses are grouped together, they have perception with their lack of knowledge

Understanding Results

• Unresolved conflicts are rooted into Spanish history by making their impact through social opportunities.
• It has caused society to become dehumanized because they are confined and lack cohesion.

Cohesion

• Zambrano suggest knowledge that supports cohesion as there is a lack of systematic philosophies.
• There is a channeling of thoughts by reflecting culture and essence.
• Through the poetry, essence of culture and history must exist, rather than just a logic.

Combining Traditionalism

• While rational thought want justifications, poetry shows contradictions and is connected with the past.
• Through this, the Spanish find ways to have dialogue with history to continue its legacy.