Quick Facts
Biography
Julián Marías Aguilera (17 June 1914 – 15 December 2005) was a Spanish philosopher associated with the Generation of '36 movement. He was a pupil of the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset.
Life and work
Marías was born in the city of Valladolid, but moved to Madrid at the age of five. He went on to study philosophy at the Complutense University of Madrid, graduating in 1936. Within months of his graduation the Spanish Civil War broke out. During the conflict Marías sided with the Republicans, although his actual contributions were limited to propaganda articles and broadcasts.
Following the end of the war in 1939, Marías returned to education. His doctoral thesis was rejected by the university, however, and handed over to the police, due to his inclusion of a number of lines critical of the rule of Franco. As a consequence of his writings Marías was briefly imprisoned and, upon his release, banned from teaching. Fortunately for Marías the proceeds from the sales of his History of Philosophy, which went through countless editions, meant that the punishment did not seriously damage his livelihood.
In 1948 he co-founded, along with his former teacher José Ortega y Gasset, the Instituto de Humanidades (which he went on to head after the death of Ortega in 1955). Between the late 1940s and the 1970s, being unable to teach in Spain, Marías taught at numerous institutions in the United States, including Harvard University, Yale University, Wellesley College, and UCLA.
Marías wrote on a wide variety of subjects during his long career. A subject of particular interest was Cervantes's Don Quixote. In 1964 he was elected into the Real Academia Española, and he won a Prince of Asturias award in 1996.
He is the father of novelist Javier Marías and art historian Fernando Marías, and married the sister of director Jesús Franco.
Selected works in translation
- History of Philosophy, translated from Spanish by Stanley Appelbaum and Clarence C. Strowbridge, Dover Publications Inc., New York, 1967.
- Philosophy as Dramatic Theory
- Metaphysical Anthropology: The Empirical Structure of Human Life
- America in the Fifties and Sixties: Julián Marías on the United States
- Biography of Philosophy
- The Christian Perspective
Works in Spanish
- Juventud en el mundo antiguo. Crucero universitario por el Mediterráneo, Espasa Calpe, Madrid, 1934
- Historia de la filosofía, with a prologue by Xavier Zubiri, epilogue by José Ortega y Gasset, Revista de Occidente, Madrid 1941 (28th ed., 1976)
- La filosofía del Padre Gratry. La restauración de la Metafísica en el problema de Dios y de la persona, Escorial, Madrid 1941
- Miguel de Unamuno, Espasa Calpe, Madrid, 1943
- El tema del hombre, Revista de Occidente, Madrid, 1943
- San Anselmo y el insensato y otros estudios de filosofía, Revista de Occidente, Madrid, 1944
- Introducción a la filosofía, Revista de Occidente, Madrid, 1947
- La filosofía española actual. Unamuno, Ortega, Morente, Zubiri, Espasa Calpe, Madrid, 1948
- El método histórico de las generaciones, Revista de Occidente, Madrid, 1949
- Ortega y tres antípodas. Un ejemplo de intriga intelectual, Revista de Occidente, Buenos Aires, 1950
- Biografía de la Filosofía, Emecé, Buenos Aires, 1954
- Ensayos de teoría, Barna, Barcelona, 1954
- Idea de la Metafísica, Columba, Buenos Aires, 1954
- La estructura social. Teoría y método, Sociedad de Estudios y Publicaciones, Madrid, 1955
- Filosofía actual y existencialismo en España, Revista de Occidente, Madrid, 1955
- El oficio del pensamiento, Biblioteca Nueva, Madrid, 1958
- La Escuela de Madrid. Estudios de filosofía española, Emecé, Buenos Aires, 1959
- Ortega. I. Circunstancia y vocación, Revista de Occidente, Madrid, 1960
- Los españoles, Revista de Occidente, Madrid. 1962
- La España posible en tiempo de Carlos III, Sociedad de Estudios y Publicaciones, Madrid, 1963
- El tiempo que ni vuelve ni tropieza, Edhasa, Barcelona, 1964
- Análisis de los Estados Unidos, Guadarrama, Madrid, 1968
- Antropología metafísica. La estructura empírica de la vida humana, Revista de Occidente, Madrid, 1970
- Visto y no visto. Crónicas de cine, Guadarrama, Madrid, 1970, 2 vols.
- Imagen de la India e Israel: una resurrección, Revista de Occidente, Madrid, 1973
- Problemas del cristianismo, BAC, Madrid, 1979
- La mujer en el siglo XX, Alianza, Madrid, 1980
- Ortega. II. Las trayectorias, Alianza, Madrid, 1983
- España inteligible. Razón histórica de las Españas, Alianza, Madrid, 1985
- La mujer y su sombra, Alianza, Madrid, 1986
- Ser español, Planeta, Barcelona, 1987
- Una vida presente. Memorias, Alianza, Madrid, 1988–1989, 3 vols.: I (1914–1951), II (1951–1975), III (1975–1989).
- La felicidad humana, Alianza, Madrid 1989
- Generaciones y constelaciones, Alianza, Madrid, 1989
- Cervantes, clave española, Alianza, Madrid, 1990
- Acerca de Ortega, Espasa Calpe, Madrid, 1991
- La educación sentimental, Alianza, Madrid, 1992
- Razón de la filosofía, Alianza, Madrid, 1993
- Mapa del mundo personal, Alianza, Madrid 1993
- El cine de Julián Marías. Escritos sobre cine, compilation edited by Fernando Alonso, Royal Books, Barcelona, 1994, 2 vols.
- Tratado de lo mejor, Alianza, Madrid, 1995
- Persona, Alianza, Madrid, 1996
- Sobre el cristianismo, Planeta Testimonio, Barcelona, 1997
- El curso del tiempo, Tomos I y II, Alianza, 1998. 2 vols.
- Tratado sobre la convivencia, Martínez Roca, Barcelona 2000
- Entre dos siglos, Alianza, Madrid, 2002
- Obras, Revista de Occidente / Alianza Editorial, Madrid 1958-1970, 10 vols.