Javier Gomá: Worldly Philosophy

In his early youth he had a particular conception of reality, an “idea of wholeness”, that later also became his mission. He was obsessed with expressing this idea and devoted nearly 30 years to exploring it, while he graduated in classical philology and philosophy, completed a law degree and began working. Gomá decided to process all of these inner feelings philosophically in a field he dubs literature, summing this work up as a “tetralogy of exemplariness”. From Gomá’s perspective, the four books are a chapter of a single internal creed, an attempt to achieve two goals: to arrive at individuality in this world and at the same time, against all experience, to nurture hopes of maintaining that individuality even beyond our world, in any place and at any time. Gomá’s central thesis is a worldly philosophy: about everything, for everything and with the utmost grace.

The debate with Javier Gomá will be chaired by Michael Žantovský while the evening will be introduced by His Excellency Pedro Calvo-Sotelo Ibáñez-Martín, Spain’s Ambassador to Prague.

Simultaneous interpretation from Spanish provided.