José Ferrater Mora facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
José Ferrater Mora
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| Born | 30 October 1912 Barcelona, Spain
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| Died | 30 January 1991 (aged 78) Barcelona
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| Education | University of Barcelona (BA, 1932; BPhil, 1936) |
| Spouse(s) |
Priscilla Cohn
(m. 1980) |
| Awards | Grand Cross of the Civil Order of Alfonso X, the Wise (1984) Creu de Sant Jordi (1984) Prince of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities (1985) |
| Era | 20th-century philosophy |
| Institutions | Bryn Mawr College |
| Doctoral students | Priscilla Cohn |
| Other notable students | Javier Muguerza, Shaun Gallagher |
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Main interests
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Applied ethics, animal ethics, metaphysics |
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Notable ideas
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Integrationism, monism sui generis |
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Influences
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Influenced
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José Ferrater Mora (whose name in Catalan was Josep Ferrater i Mora) was an important Spanish thinker, writer, and essayist. He was born on October 30, 1912, and passed away on January 30, 1991. Many people consider him the most important Catalan philosopher of the 1900s.
He wrote more than 35 books. One of his most famous works is a four-volume Diccionario de filosofía (Dictionary of Philosophy), which he started writing in 1941. He also wrote Being and Death: An Outline of Integrationist Philosophy in 1962. Ferrater Mora explored many topics, including how we understand reality, the history of ideas, and how we know things. He even directed some films!
He was well-known for believing that humans and animals are connected in a moral way. He thought the differences between them were small, not huge. The Ferrater Mora Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics is named after him to honor his ideas about animals.
Biography
José Ferrater Mora was born in 1912 in Barcelona, Spain. He went to school at Santa Maria del Collell. Later, he studied at the University of Barcelona. He earned his first degree in 1932 and another philosophy degree in 1936.
During the Spanish Civil War, he joined the Republican Army. He worked as a clerk, handling information. In 1939, he left Spain. He spent three months in Paris, France. After that, he moved to Havana, Cuba, and Santiago, Chile, where he gave lectures.
He received a special scholarship called a Guggenheim Fellowship. This allowed him to move to the United States. He first lived in New York City. In 1949, Ferrater Mora started teaching at Bryn Mawr College. He taught philosophy and Spanish literature there until he retired in 1981. In 1980, he married Priscilla Cohn, who had been one of his students.
José Ferrater Mora died from a heart attack on January 30, 1991. He was visiting Barcelona at the time.
Philosophy and Ideas
Ferrater Mora created a special way of thinking he called integrationism. He wanted to bring together different ideas that seemed to be opposites in philosophy. He believed that many arguments in philosophy happen because people think certain ideas are completely separate.
He called these ideas "limit concepts." This means they don't exist as absolute opposites. Instead, they are like different directions or trends in reality. He thought these ideas actually work together and help us understand the world better.
His work also looked at questions about the nature of reality. He called his view "monism sui generis." This idea combines two concepts: monism (the idea that everything is one) and pluralism (the idea that there are many different things). It's like an "emergentism" where things come together to form new structures.
Each new structure has new features that can't be explained just by looking at its parts. This new structure then becomes a part of an even bigger structure. This process goes on from simple physical things all the way to complex biological, social, and cultural levels. He saw this as a continuous flow from matter to reason.
Ferrater Mora was also one of the first philosophers to talk about applied ethics in the Spanish-speaking world. Applied ethics means using philosophical ideas to solve real-world problems. He was a strong supporter of animal rights.
His ideas were influenced by many thinkers. These included Spanish philosophers like Miguel de Unamuno, Eugenio d'Ors, and José Ortega y Gasset. He also learned from many other philosophers from different parts of the world.
Legacy
In January 1991, Ferrater Mora decided to give his personal library to the University of Girona in Spain. This collection is very large. It includes 7,255 books and 156 different magazines. It also has 6,748 letters.
These letters show his conversations with friends, politicians, and other smart people of his time. The collection includes letters from when he left Spain in the 1940s until his death in 1991. There are also other interesting papers about politics and culture from famous people like Xavier Benguerel and Enrique Tierno Galván.
The Ferrater Mora Chair in Contemporary Thought was started in 1989. This group regularly holds meetings and classes about modern philosophy.
Selected Works
Here are some of the important books José Ferrater Mora wrote. Most of them are in Spanish:
- Dictionary of Philosophy (1941)
- Spain and Europe (1942)
- Being and Death: Outline of Integrationist Philosophy (1962)
- From Matter to Reason (1979)
- Ways of Doing Philosophy (1985)
Awards and Honors
Ferrater Mora received many awards and honors for his work:
- He was given special honorary degrees from many universities. These included the Autonomous University of Barcelona (1979) and the University of Barcelona (1988).
- In 1982, he received the Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic.
- In 1984, he was awarded the Creu de Sant Jordi and the Grand Cross of the Civil Order of Alfonso X, the Wise.
- In 1985, he won the Prince of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities. This is one of Spain's most important awards.
- He was also a member of the International Institute of Philosophy and other important academic groups.
See also
In Spanish: Jos%C3%A9 Ferrater Mora para ni%C3%B1os
- List of animal rights advocates
