Philosophy as a vital task in Valladolid: an interview with Ricardo Sánchez Ortiz de Urbina

Abstract

This recognition of Ricardo Sánchez Ortiz de Urbina, offered by his former students, is not merely intended to pay tribute to his figure; it urgently seeks to make visible the philosophical work of one who promoted the public career of Philosophy in Valladolid and has proposed a contemporary reformulation of phenomenology —as a personal and transformative experience. The point is precisely not to determine the phenomenon.

This approach would not have been complete without the direct word of its protagonist. If we learned anything from Professor Urbina, it is that philosophy is not transmitted through concepts, nor even through ideas, nor by weaving systematic threads, but rather through the word embodied in dialogue and in living exposition. In any case, philosophy is transmitted —as was the case here— through extraordinary dedication, and, as Olvido García Valdés, poet and former student of Ricardo, says: «making seeing by disappearing».