Reflections on cosmopolitanism and Hispanism. About a book with 27 perspectives: A propósito de un libro con 27 perspectivas

Abstract

Relatos de cosmopolitismo en el pensamiento filosófico hispánico (Madrid, ed. Dykinson SL, 2021) gathers nearly thirty lectures on diverse topics that closely concern certain features related to what we could call lo hispano. What best characterizes lo hispano can be made clear throughout the fascinating reading of the book: beginning with the poetical reason of María Zambrano, towards the question of slavery in Spain, the renowned tradition of doctor-philosophers such as Andrés Laguna, until the picaresca as the genre that best characterizes the literature in Spanish: a genre that articulates itself around the character of the picaro, an individual disappointed with reality and who makes use of his wit (ingenio) in order to survive in such a cruel world as the one he lives in. This ingenio will allow us to put forth a genuinely Hispanic proposal, which refers to a notion in which the Hispanidad reaches its peak: cosmopolitism. We reflect on some of these important contributions.