Jose Antonio Marina

José Antonio Marina Torres (Toledo, July 1, 1939), is a Spanish philosopher, essayist and educator.

Biography

Grandson of the Toledo philosopher Juan Marina Muñoz, José Antonio Marina Torres is a surplus professor of philosophy at the La Cabrera Institute in Madrid, Doctor Honoris Causa from the Polytechnic University of Valencia, as well as a lecturer and flower grower. He studied philosophy at the Complutense University of Madrid, with his friend and writer Álvaro Pombo as a classmate.

His research work has focused on the study of intelligence and especially the mechanisms of artistic (especially in the area of language), scientific, technological and economic creativity. He can be considered an exponent of Spanish phenomenology. He has developed a theory of intelligence that begins in neurology and ends in ethics. His latest books deal with the intelligence of organizations and political structures. He collaborates in the press (Cultural Supplement Crónica of El Mundo , El Semanal , El Confidencial , Tiempo , etc.), radio and television. In recent years he has participated in gatherings and debates on Radio Nacional de España. He has written essays and newspaper articles and is the author of the textbook for the subject Education for Citizenship of the SM publishing house.

For his research he uses a large number of collaborators, who are co-authors of his books. He adopts generic forms such as the dictionary, the opinion or the didactic-historical novel.

He does a job as an analyst of current affairs in his essay The mystery of the lost will, where he analyzes the crisis of this value in contemporary society and education. In his Dictionary of feelings, he analyzes the vision of these that is implicit in language, discovers that negative feelings are more widely represented in it than positive ones, and raises the need for an early education of the emotions. In Dictamen sobre Dios , an essay on the philosophy of religion, she investigates the cultural menhir that the concept of divinity implies, concluding in its ontological connection with the notion of Existence that provides the phenomenology. In addition, she enunciates the Ethical Principle of Truth, which assumes that when private truths collide with universal ones in the public sphere, the latter must prevail in order to enable coexistence.

In Why I am a Christian he exposes his personal vision of Christianity and the energetic figure of Jesus, and defends the theory anticipated by Averroes of the double truth, distinguishing those based on intersubjective evidence and those that come from private evidence and states that: «Integrists transfer their private truths to the public sphere. This is the problem we are facing."

Details how, in order to protect itself from the natural tendency towards plurality of religious experiences, Christianity became dogmatized in its long process of ecclesiastical institutionalization, just as it happens in other religions. At the First Vatican Council, the Catholic Church declared itself infallible and since then it has not been able to retract its dogmas, even knowing that some of these are the result of the cultural pressures of specific times. According to the author, it is necessary to limit the scope of religious beliefs without denying their importance, and they must always be defended in the private field, since when a religion is threatened it appeals to freedom of conscience, but when it comes to power it abandons tolerance. What can be universalized are ethical principles, not personal beliefs. Some of these ideas of Marina have been debated from philosophy and theology.

The learning process is designated through two concepts: intelligence and talent. The goal of education is to turn intelligence into talent.

Educational mobilization

Parallel to his essay writing, Marina is committed to the project of promoting an "educational mobilization" whose purpose is to involve the entire Spanish society in the task of improving education through a cultural change that takes advantage of the concern, generosity, energy and talent of thousands of people willing to collaborate. According to the author:

Universal concern for education has generated a system of excuses in which everyone blames the neighbor. Parents to school, school to parents, all on television, television to the spectators, finally we ended up asking for solutions to the government, that appeals to the responsibility of the citizens, and again to begin. In this infernal wheel of excuses we can be turning to the day of judgment. The only solution that occurs to me is not to wait for others to solve the problem, but to ask me: what can I do to solve it?

The most recent proposal of this educational mobilization has been to promote an Online Parent University. As it says on its page:

It is a pedagogical project led by José Antonio Marina to collaborate with parents throughout the educational process of their children. The fundamental idea of this project is that all society must help in this task. As the motto of Educational Mobilization says: “To educate a child, the entire tribe is needed”

Work

Awards and distinctions

• Anagram Test Prize for "Elogio y refutación del ingenio" (1992)
• National Rehearsal Award for "Elogio y refutación del ingenio" (1993)
• Award for the Best Book of the Year of the Journal Elle.
• Andrés Ferret Journalism Award.
• Juan de Borbón Award for the best book of the year.
• Head of the Festival of Mercè de Barcelona (2001).
• INTRAS 2002 awards. Special mention for "his intellectual efficacy and his affinity of feelings with Fundación INTRAS"
• DMR Economics Award.
• Giner Award for the Rivers of Educational Innovation.
• Fundación Independiente de Periodismo Camilo José Cela (2007)
• Castile-La Mancha Gold Medal (2007)