Notes on the philosophical thought of Dr. José Gregorio Hernández

Abstract

At a conference I had the pleasure of attending, the Spanish philosopher Fernando Savater was asked if philosophers lived the way they advised others. He answered with great grace that philosophers were like road signs, which indicate where the city is and the distance, but they do not go with the traveler. In the case of José Gregorio Hernández this is not the case, since he was not a philosopher who reflected on the divine and the human, but rather he lived according to ideals. This is what he himself wrote in the prologue of his book “Elements of Philosophy”: “I publish today my philosophy, my own, the one that I have lived.” (Hernández, 1912)