PRESENTATION

PRESENTATION

The recent controversy that Jürgen Habermas and Peter Sloterdijk have provoked in Germany on the subject of humanism as a model of "civilisation" of humankind has once more placed on the agenda a crucial topic for man's existence in the world.

Modern art has had its "anti-humanist" project established as a principal message and emblem. The controversy surrounding modern art, however, is not aimed against mankind but rather attacks its ideological shape. In the words of Giorgio Agamben: "It is not anti-human, but anti-humanist".

In addition, attempts to formulate humanistic culture around the writing/reading axis opposed to an anti-humanism which would be expressed through the audio-visual and technological, has raised voices reclaiming the role of the oral tradition for a better understanding of the world.

It is hoped that a continuous point of reflection could be created on this issue, a public space in which various points of view can be expressed.

A common point of departure brings together the biographies of these three thinkers. A look at their different visions and journeys reveals to us three different opinions on the "critical" landscape in which humanism finds itself. Víctor Gómez Pin, who pointed out in a recent pamphlet all the fallacies of the hyper-world, sets out his argument from the ontology and the Cartesian rigour demanded by any system of writing. While Fernando Savater proposes a model of knowledge rich in proximity, in which the word itself acquires a balsamic quality.Javier Echeverría, embarks from his knowledge of the new digital order, the culture of the net and the learning of hypertext.

PROGRAMME

PROGRAMME

Wednesday, 9th January
· 20:30 h. Víctor Gómez Pin:
A singular animal: rational, no mere animal or machine

Thursday, 10th January
· 20:30 h. Fernando Savater:
The secular and the religious in the politics of the 21st century

Friday, 11th January
· 19:00 h. Javier Echeverría:
Humanising the digital world

FREE ENTRY

SPEAKERS

SPEAKERS

Víctor Gómez Pin
Doctor in Philosophy at the Sorbonne in Paris, his thesis was based on the Aristotelian order. He later obtained a professorship at the Universidad del País Vasco with a research paper on the philosophical aspects of differential calculus. He is currently professor at the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona where he teaches Gnoseology and Mathematic Thought. He is co-ordinator of the International Congress in Ontology, which in its latest editions has been run with the sponsorship of the UNESCO. He is author of over twenty books which include El drama de la ciudad ideal, La dignidad, La tentación pitagórica and Los ojos del murciélago: vidas en la caverna global. He obtained the Premio Anagrama de Ensayo (Anagrama Essay Prize) in 1989 for his book Filosofía: el saber del esclavo.

Fernando Savater
Professor of Philosophy at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, having been Professor of Ethics at the Universidad del País Vasco, he has devoted the last twenty years to the teaching and the reflection of ethics. He is co-director of the magazine Claves de razón práctica. National Essay Prizewinner in 1982, he has published among other titles, Panfleto contra el Todo, Criaturas del aire, Ética para Amador, Política para Amador, El contenido de la felicidad and La aventura africana.

Javier Echeverría
Graduated in Mathematics and Doctor in Philosophy from the Universidad Complutense in Madrid, he is also Doctor in Letters and Human Sciences from the Sorbonne in Paris. He has taught at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and the Universidad del País Vasco. He is currently Research Professor in Science, Technology and Society at the Philosophy Institute of the CSIC. He is editor of the magazine THEORIA, specialising in the Logic, Philosophy and History of Science. His noteworthy works include Telépolis, Cosmopolitas Domésticos, Filosofía de la Ciencia and Los Señores del Aire: Telépolis y el Tercer Entorno, for which he won the 2000 Premio Nacional de Ensayo (the National Essay Prize).