Fernando Savater

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Fernando Savater

Fernando Savater (born June 21, 1947 in San Sebastián , Spain ) is a writer , translator and professor of philosophy at the Complutense University of Madrid . He is also known for his political campaign against Basque nationalism.

biography

Savater is the son of a notary from San Sebastián and was an avid reader, especially of popular literature and picture stories, in his childhood . He has retained this preference and it is often the subject of his essays. He was also drawn to the theater and was a member of several amateur theater groups. He studied philosophy at the Universidad Complutense in Madrid, where his family moved from San Sebastián. During this time his first close relatives died. He worked as a research assistant at the Faculty of Political Science and the Faculty of Philosophy of the Autonomous University of Madrid ; In 1971 he was banned from teaching for political reasons.

After the end of the Franco dictatorship, he was a lecturer in ethics and sociology at the Spanish university UNED and for over a decade professor of ethics at the University of the Basque Country . He is currently Professor of Philosophy at the Complutense University of Madrid. He has been writing regularly for the daily El País since it was founded and, together with Javier Pradera , ran the magazine Claves para la Razón Práctica (“Key to Practical Reason”) until his death in November 2011 . He also appears frequently on radio broadcasts. He translated Voltaire , Diderot and Bataille into Spanish , and he also published more than thirty books of his own, including on Nietzsche , anarchism , painting and childhood .

philosophy

Savater acknowledges influences from Nietzsche , Emil Cioran and Spinoza, among others , and defines himself as a filósofo de compañía (for example: "philosopher from the neighborhood") in the style of the French Enlightenment philosophers and in contrast to purely academic philosophy. In the wake of Spinoza, he advocates an ethic of the will as opposed to the ethic of duty: people naturally pursue their happiness, and the function of ethics is only to make this will clear and to point out possible forms of realization. It should therefore not judge human activity on the basis of abstract criteria that are detached from human happiness.

Particularly well-known in Spain are Savater's popular science books in which he presents philosophical questions for young people, in particular Ética para Amador (“Ethics for Amador”, German translation under the title “Do what you want. Ethics for tomorrow's adults”), Política para Amador (“Politics for Amador”, German translation under the title “Don't be an idiot. Politics for tomorrow's adults”) and Las preguntas de la vida (“The questions of life”).

Political positions

Fernando Savater has also become increasingly politically active since the 1980s. He mainly represents liberal and social democratic positions. Inspired by the humanistic ideal of united humanity, Savater rejects any form of nationalism and is particularly committed to the nationalist-patriotic regional parties in the Basque Country - from which Savater comes -, but also in Catalonia and other Spanish regions. Due to death threats from the Basque nationalist terrorist organization ETA , Savater was under personal protection until 2011. He is one of the most important representatives of the anti-ETA association ¡Basta Ya! ("It is enough!"). He also supports the anti-nationalist Catalan association Ciutadans de Catalunya ("Citizens of Catalonia") founded in 2005 .

The negotiations that the government under José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero led after the armistice announcement by ETA from March 2005 with this terrorist organization, Savater refused after initial support. Ever since a party that emerged from the Ciutadans de Catalunya won a surprising success in the Catalan regional elections in 2006, Savater has been campaigning for the establishment of a new Spain-wide party, which in September 2007 was called Unión Progreso y Democracia (“Union Progress and Democracy “, UPyD) was founded under the leadership of the former socialist MEP Rosa Díez as a centrist and anti-nationalist alternative to the socialist PSOE and the conservative PP. In 2013 he spoke out in favor of the UPyD merging with the Ciudadanos party, which emerged from Ciutadans de Catalunya , and stood for them in the 2019 elections on a lower position in the list.

Because of his political statements, often presented in polemical form, Savater was criticized by Basque politicians and intellectuals, who accuse him of being in truth not a liberal humanist, but a representative of Spanish nationalism. On the other hand, Savater was also attacked from the conservative side. So accused him of the Foro de Ermua ("Ermua-Forum", an also against ETA, politically pro-PP, from which Savater had previously resigned) to be insufficiently critical of the Zapatero government. In addition, Savater's commitment to secularism and individual freedom of choice on issues such as abortion and euthanasia was rejected by the conservative side.

Awards

2008: Premio Planeta (a Spanish literary prize endowed with 601,000 euros) for the novel La Hermandad de la Buena Suerte (“The Brotherhood of Happiness”).

Works in German

Web links

Commons : Fernando Savater  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Marko Martin: Where was the support? In: The world. October 25, 2011, accessed November 18, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Savater: "Voy con Rivera porque Ciudadanos sigue siendo la opción más útil para frenar a Sánchez". In: El Español. October 9, 2019, accessed November 18, 2019 (Spanish).
personal data
SURNAME Savater, Fernando
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Spanish writer and philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH June 21, 1947
PLACE OF BIRTH San Sebastian