Dates
April 3, 2025
When?
Soon
Link
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Read, see, think, speak
Towards the logos . Philosophy in Zamora, with Francisco Javier Hernández González
  • For adults interested in nature issues or philosophical interest
  • First and third Thursday of every month, from 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
  • Number of places > 25
  • Registrations can be made at the library reception desk or via the online formThis link will open in a pop-up window.
  • Meeting place: Multipurpose room

Presentation and Objective : With renewed hopes we are beginning the third year of our Filocafé, determined to continue with this objective that we find as stimulating as it is rewarding: promoting philosophical reflection and social debate in a setting that is conducive to reading and thinking, such as the public library. In the face of sectarianism (which seems to become more acute every year) of the "Huns" against the "Hotros" (as Unamuno said), the aim is to create a space for rational, reasoned and knowledge-based dialogue.
Along these lines we will try to contribute our grain of sand, convinced that knowledge and rationality are the most powerful weapons to achieve progress in the material and spiritual development of societies, while allowing individuals to achieve a more fully human life.
Throughout the course, a wide variety of topics will be proposed for dialogue, based on texts and/or films, which will serve both as information and as a motivating element for rational discussion.

Media : facilities of the Zamora Public Library, its documentary collection (books, films, etc.), any other additional material.

Recipients : any interested person.
This Filocafé aims to be an attempt to disseminate and promote philosophical reflection, aimed at anyone who is interested in the problems of the world in general and human life in particular.

Format : Each session will last approximately 90 minutes. A few days before each session, participants will receive an invitation to the event via email (which they provided when they subscribed), announcing the date and topic of the session and a brief description of it, as well as any other necessary materials.

Description of the activity : with the aim of promoting philosophical reflection and social debate in a suitable framework such as the Public Library, where above all people read and "see" and, therefore, think by transferring their thinking to the common home that is language, social speech, this activity is structured as follows:

  • Brief presentation of the topic of the session, oral presentation by the speaker/introducer of the topic and reading of text fragments related to the topic to be discussed.
  • Discussion with attendees.

The order of this narrative formula is left to the speaker, who can follow it or replace it with another.

Responsible person : Francisco Javier Hernández González . However, we will have a choral direction together with Carmen Seisdedos and José Luis Mochales . We will also have the collaboration of other people who can take charge of the organization and coordination of some of the topics.

Programming planned for the first quarter

Please note that this is only a guideline forecast, but may vary as the quarter progresses.

  • October 3:

- The tyranny of mediocrity vs. the tyranny of merit. During our first course we discussed the problems of meritocracy with M. Sandel's book, "The tyranny of merit". Recently, Sophie Coignard has published "The tyranny of mediocrity", arguing about the consequences of reducing the value of merit. This contrast of points of view can be enriching for us to address a topic that, we believe, is of capital importance for the progress and well-being of societies and their individuals.

  • October 17:

- Presentation of Pablo Redondo's book: Conversar con los amigos absentes. Epistolarios en la historia de la filosofia (El Desvelo Ediciones, 2024). The Roman philosopher and politician Cicero defined letters as a "conversation between absent friends." Pablo Redondo, a doctor in Philosophy and a secondary school teacher in this subject, has taken up this Ciceronian idea to write a magnificent book, both for its careful and elegant style and for its precise and rigorous content. The book is made up of 21 chapters that describe some of these epistolary conversations between leading philosophers in the history of philosophy.

  • November 7:

- On exemplarity, with Javier Gomá Lanzón. We will carry out our reflection on this concept following the tetralogy, or rather trilogy, since we will leave the fourth book, Necessary, but impossible , for another occasion. Gomá Lanzón, PhD in philosophy, graduate in classical philology and director of the Juan March Foundation, published his works on this subject in 2013, 2014… Of the three initial titles we are going to work on the second, Achilles in the gyneceum , and the third, Public exemplarity , handling concepts that appear in the first, Imitation and experience .
Masterfully using myths and literary traditions, using subtle and original interpretations and reflections, he speaks of the human need for public activity, leading to aspects as classic, but innovative in their formulation, as nihilism, civilization, paideia, virtue, responsibility ..., framed in a context that socially and culturally concerns and challenges us.

  • November 21:

- Nietzsche: Understanding his philosophy from the will to power.
"The will to power" is the final formulation of this idea that runs through all of Nietzsche’s thought: the affirmation of life. This idea is constantly transformed into various concepts to express the fundamental thesis of all of his thought: the will to power . Nietzsche’s perspectivism is a fragmentary thought, which approaches the idea of the will to power from abysmal places.
Understanding Nietzsche's work from the concept of the will to power and its different formulations (transvaluation of values, superman, fight against resentment, affirmation of life, eternal return) allows us to understand his philosophy without betraying his fragmentary way of thinking, as occurs in attempts to systematize his thought.

  • December 5th:

- Dreaming of monsters. There is an engraving from Goya's "Caprichos" series (1799) called "The sleep of reason produces monsters." The enigmatic and ambiguous title and image make it very suggestive. We do not know if it refers to sleeping reason or to its longings, but in either case it produces monsters.
The 18th century is the century of the Enlightenment, of the Lights, which illuminates with the torch of reason the darkness of past ages and opens up a better time for us. Human beings, masters of their lives and through education and technical and moral progress, will be free and better. Between the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century, this optimistic program begins to be called into question. The light, perhaps, will not be able to make either the darkness or the monsters that inhabit it disappear.
In philosophy, this post-Enlightenment period, and paraphrasing titles of works dealing with it, are the wild years of philosophy in which magnificent rebels try to create the republic of free spirits, this is a fundamentally German adventure. At the same time, in literature it is the era of the creation of the great figures of monstrous beings, this will be a fundamentally Anglo-Saxon adventure.
Between philosophy and literature we will see some of the characteristics of this era and its consequences, still present in our own time.

  • December 19:

- Understanding History with Kant (tribute on his tercentenary). To celebrate the tercentenary of one of the greatest philosophers, we will dedicate the final session of the year to reflecting on the fundamental questions of the meaning of history: Is progress in history possible? What can we do to facilitate this progress? How important is reason? To address these issues, we will draw on two wonderful, very short works read by our 2nd-year high school students: "What is the Enlightenment" and " The Idea of a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose."

Programming planned for the second quarter

Please note that this is only a guideline forecast, but may vary as the quarter progresses.

  • January 16:

- Art in the 20th century, the paradigm shift, with Carmen Seisdedos Sánchez.
The 20th century, or rather the last years of the 19th century, have been rich in the appearance of new forms of representation of reality - photography and cinema - of the interaction of technology with art, the use of new resources, the easy reproducibility of consecrated artistic forms, the synthesis of beauty and utility in new forms of design... For this reason, it seems interesting to dedicate some reflections to this subject. As we are dealing with a very broad field, we will focus this brief reflection on architecture and painting, presenting some of the names that at the dawn of the 20th century represented a substantial break with previous models.
Architects such as Lloyd Wright, movements such as the Bauhaus and the constellation of essential names that are grouped within it, currents such as the avant-garde, generally focused on the variation of formal content; the loss of value of the figurative, and therefore of the concept of imitation and, to a certain extent, of the symbolic character of art; the need to make manifestos in defence of contemporary art... are some of the themes that will make us think. The importance of patronage, of the collections and museums to which they gave rise, the social and political function of art... are just a few arguments that outline problems related to the art of our time.

  • January 24 (Friday from 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.):

- Nature and freedom. Philosophical questions at the surface, with Sebastian Salgado González.
Based on Sebastián Salgado's book: Las dos pieles. Naturaleza y libertad: destilaciones filosóficas (El Desvelo Ediciones, 2024), we will reflect on the concepts of nature and freedom in a generally ontological, but also ethical-political, key. Are we free? Can we live in an untransformed nature? Is freedom for nature or against it? Does nature have laws? Does freedom have them? In human beings, nature and freedom seem to be their skins, and each one is both an inside and an outside.

  • February 6th:

- Constitutional reform under debate: future and possibilities, with Emilio Ferrero García.
Since the promulgation of the Spanish Constitution in 1978, our fundamental norm has only undergone three very specific and limited reforms. However, the Spain of the transition, which buried the dictatorship, has changed, as has the world that surrounded it and into which it was integrated (the entry into the European Union, the fall of the Berlin Wall...). Not in vain are there voices from different areas that advocate its reform, although not always with clear content and with less desire for dialogue in the construction of new consensus, precisely at a time of questioning. All this justifies the slow reflection on the future of our current Magna Carta and the viability of its possible reforms, from an informative and pluralist perspective.

  • February 20:

- Freud, critic of culture, with José Luis Mochales.
Paul Ricoeur , in a book about Freud from 1965, called Nietzsche, Marx and Freud philosophers of suspicion. In previous sessions of Filocafé we have talked about the first two; in this one we will talk about the third. Our author will suspect what is hidden behind our ideals: good, culture, reason, will…, and their less presentable companions. The Freud that we will discuss in this session will be more the thinker than the psychoanalyst, who is difficult to ignore if we want to reflect on ourselves and our world.

  • March 6:

- Marcus Aurelius: " Meditations "
Stoic thought emerged with the crisis of the "polis" in the Hellenistic era. It was again of great importance in the Roman world, although its splendour also occurred when the crisis of traditional political values had already occurred, and the individual took refuge in his interiority. Nowadays, at the beginning of the 21st century, times of political and spiritual crisis seem to be returning, and Stoicism is once again becoming fashionable due to the need to develop what psychologists now call "resilience", but which was traditionally called "strength of spirit". On this occasion, we will use the format of a reading club to reflect on this topic, and the library will lend copies of the aforementioned book to those registered at this phyllocafé.

  • March 20:

- The myth of Prometheus: Interpreting the " mytho " from the " logos "
We will use Plato's version of the Prometheus myth presented in his dialogue " Protagoras ," and we will be able to reflect on the enormous suggestive power of mythical wisdom, in this case, regarding the origin of humanity with its specific attributes of technical and political knowledge. We will also be able to consider other versions of the myth, such as Aeschylus' classical tragedy " Prometheus Bound ," or Lucian's quasi-burlesque version in his dialogue " Prometheus in the Caucasus ."

Scheduled programming for the third quarter

We remind you that this is only a guideline, but it may change as the quarter progresses. We continue with our regular schedule of 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.; however, please pay attention to the days on which our sessions will be held, as we will not be able to maintain the usual schedule of the first and third Thursdays of each month.

  • April 3:

- Stoicism versus Epicureanism: "The letter to Menoeceus"

Having dedicated a session last term to the topic of Stoicism, we thought it appropriate to continue with such a timely and thought-provoking topic, pitting it against Epicureanism, which was once its main rival school in ethics. We thus find ourselves facing a confrontation as enduring as humanity itself: the austere and resigned thinking of some is often contrasted with the joyful enjoyment of life of others. We will see how these different attitudes to life are based on two distinct worldviews.
To approach Epicurean thought, we will read a short but very significant text: "The Letter to Meneceus"

  • May 6:

- The Wisdom of the Ancients: " De sapientia veterum" (De sapientia veterum). Francis Bacon, with Carmen Seisdedos Sánchez.

Heir to several traditions: humanism, the renewal of science, the problem of method, the new notion of nature, empiricism and English nominalism, the author we propose, whose life took place in Elizabethan England between 1561 and 1626, wrote essential texts, taking up the baton of the currents we have mentioned, such as Novum Organum and New Atlantis.
In this work, he analyzes thirty Greco-Latin myths, interpreting them in light of the new vision of nature, the new science he proposes. The themes of Pan, Cassandra, Perseus, Antheon, Pentheus, the Sphinx, Proserpina… will reveal a new face and a new hermeneutical possibility, highlighting that mythological stories are never exhausted.
"The Wisdom of the Ancients" (De sapientia veterum). Francis Bacon; Spanish translation by Silvia Manzo, with preliminary study and notes. Tecnos Publishing House.

  • May 22:

- A walk through Quantum Physics, with Julio Giménez Funcia.

We'll explore a world that challenges our intuition and invites us to reconsider our understanding of the nature of reality, matter, and energy. We'll take a brief historical overview, addressing certain key concepts and exploring some of the most well-known paradoxes.
Quantum Physics is not only fundamental to explaining how the world of the very small works, it has also enabled the emergence and development of technologies without which today... we would live differently.
Perhaps we will all answer some questions together, and no doubt many more will arise that will remain unanswered.

  • June 3:

- Conceptual harmonics in Agustín Garcia Calvo's "let yourself speak" with Luis Ramos de la Torre.

For a defender of "Common Reason," like Agustín García Calvo, always concerned with the actions and expressions of languages, constantly in doubt about the possible authorship of his proposals—both in terms of thought and in the different sonorities of words, gestures, or songs—and for a necessary listener, always attentive and with an ear open to any proposal in favor of people's struggles, nothing is more urgent and necessary than to investigate together some of his writings to try to wander among the conceptual chords and harmonics that, from lyrics, grammar, popular song, poetry, science, or thought, are entangled in a work as sadly forgotten as it is necessarily relevant.

Course topics 2023-2024

Course topics 2022-2023


Course topics 2019-2020

Course topics 2018-2019

Address and map location

  • Postal address Biblioteca Pública de Zamora - Plaza Claudio Moyano, s/n. municipality of Zamora . NaN. Zamora