• Fundación Banco Santander publishes Doce filosofías para un nuevo mundo (Twelve Philosophies for a New World), the latest book in the Obra Fundamental Collection, which presents a broad panorama of contemporary Spanish thought and its reflections on the present and the future, through twelve prestigious philosophers from different generations.
• This book is the conclusion of the trilogy "¿Hacia dónde camina el ser humano?, (Where is the human being heading?) which began in the wake of the "pandemic" to reflect creatively on the transformation we are experiencing at a societal and individual level, and which, in Doce visiones y Doce líricas, featured 26 great writers (narrators and poets) who produced unpublished stories and poetry books, as well as giving exclusive interviews, recitals and dramatised stories in podcast format.
• The book is accompanied by 24 podcasts with exclusive interviews with each philosopher and spoken excerpts from their work, available on the foundation's website.

Madrid, 20 June 2024 - PRESS RELEASE

We are living in a time of profound transformation, with dizzying changes that bring uncertainties associated with what it means to be human and the redefinition of concepts such as freedom, politics, technology, genetics, nature, etc. Philosophy encourages us to question the paradigms of the realities and illusions that shape us, which is why Fundación Banco Santander has asked twelve renowned philosophers: where is the human being heading?

Ana Carrasco-Conde, Antonio Lastra, Azahara Alonso, Carlos Blanco, Daniel Innerarity, Eurídice Cabañes, Heike Freire, Javier Echeverría, José Antonio Marina, Josefa Ros, José Luis Villacañas, Victoria Camps, through twelve unpublished and exclusive essays, without mediation or censorship, reveal essential elements and obscure angles of our contemporaneity in the face of the future challenges that await us. In addition, a thirteenth essay by Ángel Gabilondo, current Ombudsman and Professor of Metaphysics, is included as an epilogue to the volume.

Javier Expósito Lorenzo, literary director of the Banco Santander Foundation, writer and poet, presents a prologue and anthology of these philosophers, by interviewing them in the podcasts we have included. This period of dizzying change will require new ethical statements, not only from institutions, politicians and entrepreneurs, but also from each one of us, in the great decisions we make about where we are going, and that is why reflection and questioning are so important in order to open up possible paths.

Ana Carrasco Conde, one of the most esteemed young philosophers, uses the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as an opportunity to challenge us in ‘Tragedia humana: cómo aprender a escuchar el daño’  (Human Tragedy: How to Learn to Listen to Harm). The military conflicts we are witnessing, such as those in Gaza or Ukraine, serve as a pretext to ask ourselves whether we really want to understand or judge others, and how suffering is constantly served up on a platter by all the media and pervades our gaze. The philosopher reveals the importance of listening to the other from our own mystery.

In 'Hacia dónde camina el ser humano' (Where the human being is heading), José Antonio Marina, one of the great voices of education and philosophy, examines the mechanisms of social manipulation and social media. We live in an age of mistrust of truth, the glorification of opinion and the weakening of attention. As a result, we are more easily manipulated and less likely to question reality. Marina delves into the satisfaction mechanisms of social manipulation, the psychologism of happiness and the uniformity of education, asking where we are going and with what interests or ethical statements.  

José Luis Villacañas, another of the most renowned contemporary philosophers, foresees the future of democracy and its ethical crisis in a future civil struggle: ‘La democracia no es un destino, sino un combate’ (Democracy is not a destiny, but a struggle). Drawing on the philosophy of Max Weber, Villacañas delves into the geopolitical situation of the world, the end of an era on an 'accelerated train to nowhere', where the battle for virtual space, the apocalyptic temptation and the weakness of democracy lead us to the need for a new concept of responsibility, where Epimethean passion is needed to move towards greater individual participation in social reform. 

Victoria Camps, one of the last ladies of Humanism, and Councillor of Permanent State, talks about how we are Sujetos a la deriva (Subjects adrift). Camps echoes Hannah Arendt to characterise the experience of living in ‘dark times’, where reference points have been shattered and bewilderment, confusion and uncertainty reign. Human beings do not seem to be equipped to situate themselves between the past and the future if they do not want to let go of their humanity and, at the same time, create a new concept of freedom that unites individuality and collective sentiment.

Daniel Innerarity, professor and AI expert, calls for a new social contract in ‘Hacia un nuevo mundo de humanos y máquinas’ (Towards a new world of humans and machines). The author argues that in the future we will live in an environment so populated by robots, algorithms and automated decision-making systems that a new social contract between humans and machines will be necessary in the age of artificial intelligence. How we shape this world will determine whether it is a promise or a nightmare, he says in this essay, which proposes a new concept of work and society that integrates robotics and AI into our world from a clear direction.

Azahara Alonso, philosopher and writer, and one of the literary voices of the year for her book Gozo, wonders why ‘We maintain projects in exhausted lives’ (Mantenemos proyectos en vidas exhaustas). In her essay she urges us to ask ourselves what it is that we truly desire in a world where the acceleration of the work system and the narcissism in which contemporary human beings move lead us to helplessness, to the tiredness of the body in the face of life, to the exhaustion of joy. The thinker suggests ways of ‘wasting time’, such as walking or imagining, which are also characteristic of human beings, and which make life much more bearable.   

Carlos Blanco, one of our most internationally renowned young philosophers, delves into what lies ahead for human knowledge in ¿Qué podemos esperar?  (What can we expect?)  In his essay, the author wonders about the ambivalence of human progress, delving into terms such as idealism, technology, Nature, and, above all, freedom in the light of recent events and the irruption of AI. Blanco's syncretism dazzles us in this essay that travels through the human mind, guiding us to an understanding of the benefits and drawbacks of technical progress and human pride. 

Javier Echeverría, winner of the National Essay Prize twice over, and pioneer of techno-humanity, codifies the passage ‘De lo humano a lo tecno humano’ (From human to techno-human). We live in an ever-deepening digital Technopolis, where the market for nanotechnologies and artificial intelligences acquires great importance, sliding towards a techno humanity, where the ‘lords of the clouds’, owners of the great online platforms and services, like ancient feudal lords, are in control of our lives. Echeverría delves into the origin of this society, its consequences and the future that awaits us.

Eurídice Cabañes, a specialist in philosophy and technology, and a pioneer in the world of video games with a conscience, reveals the hidden face of the online world and the cloud in ‘Filosofía zombi para habitar el colapso’ (Zombie philosophy to inhabit the collapse). The feeling of the posthumous dominates Humanity, a world of sleepers and strangers to themselves (the zombies) inhabits the gates of collapse. We need a new philosophy that re-inhabits the world, and that means unveiling the dark angles of dominant metaphors in our reality, such as ‘the cloud’ and what lies behind the virtual world (dark patterns, algorithmic governance, technopolitics, child exploitation, wars) in the search for a supportive and engaged technology.

Heike Freire, philosopher, psychologist and pioneer of environmental education, takes us back to our roots with ‘Doce estancias. Un viaje’  (Twelve rooms. A Journey). ‘Nobody has ever asked me about everything it means to be human’, says the character in this ethical fable that tells us about the uncertainty of our path of progress, the relationship between human beings and Nature and the broken promise of the Promethean paradise due to pride. Twelve rooms that offer us a deformed mirror of the action we have unleashed on the evolution of our species and the planet.

Josefa Ros, another of our prestigious young philosophers, elaborates philosophy as therapy with ‘El pack de la filosofía del cuidado’  (The philosophy of care pack). The vocation of philosophy has been to give us a set of tools to confront the ‘absolutism of reality’, the transience of life and the dangers of growing uncertainty, the hallmarks of our time. For this reason, Ros gives us the keys to her philosophy of care, based on a communal feeling that consists of taking care of ourselves: knowing that you will be taken care of and that you will take care of. A new way of mitigating pain and achieving a certain inner peace.

In his essay ‘La loma de Bechí'’ (The hill of Bechí), Antonio Lastra observes the transformation of the landscape through time and civilisations. A hill that has seen the rise and fall of Iberians, Romans, Visigoths, Arabs and Christians is the excuse the author uses to combine history and cinema, memory and the present, anchoring himself in the ancestral and in philosophy as a therapeutic path to find the roots that support our view of the world. Is our present a succession of pasts, what is progress, on what do we base human evolution, where do we see ourselves? 

And finally, Ángel Gabilondo, professor of metaphysics and ombudsman, who opens the volume, warns us that 'the human being is saying goodbye' in “El ser humano está de despedida”. Freedom lies in knowing that not everything is in our hands," Gabilondo tells us in this essay. We crave control even more, and yet, in a world where technology, biology and language are changing the human being, it is necessary to know what it is to be human, and what we are saying goodbye to, in order to go, or perhaps not, to another place and another way of being, or not being.

At Fundación Banco Santander we are unwavering in our commitment to promote culture and thought, aware of the wave of transformations derived from the current context, convinced that the creative freedom of the artist is fundamental in the search for a literature that serves as a refuge for the human being, states the prologue signed by Javier Expósito Lorenzo, head of Literature at Fundación Banco Santander. This is the culmination of the trilogy Hacia dónde camina el ser humano, which invites us to reflect creatively on the transformation we are undergoing on a social and individual level.

As is customary in the Foundation's publications, the book is accompanied by podcasts with interviews with the authors, as well as fragments of their poems recited by the authors themselves.