Last Tuesday, September 29, the seminars of the 2020-21 course of department of Philosophy began with a exhibition on Robert Spaemann and his synthesis of nature and culture. It was given by Professor Ana Marta González. Due to capacity reasons, the session was held at the classroom Magna of the Central Building and, in addition to those present, a dozen people followed it via zoom. 

Professor Gonzalez gave a seminar she had prepared for an international congress in Munich, suspended due to the pandemic, on Robert Spaemann and his concept of teleological nature, in connection with the Philosophy of culture. "One must choose whether to be a man or a citizen", read Gonzalez, quoting Jean-Jaques Rousseau, who embodies the problem that Robert Spaemann faces: that of the division drawn in the Enlightenment between nature and culture. Professor Gonzalez explained that Spaemann overcomes this duality by recovering the classical concept of teleological nature - transcendent, inclined to an end beyond itself - and with five thesis that follow from this concept. This was one of them: culture is humanized nature, not abolished nature. 

To illustrate how culture, reason and words unravel the hidden meaning of the natural, González spoke of what, for Kant, constitutes an example of human good: a good meal in good company. A banquet. If nature and culture are abstracted as Rousseau does, nature remains as a mere self-referential physiological necessity and culture as an oppressive ornament or disembodied spiritualism. González illustrated this idea by stating: "To be nourished by a serum, as in hospitals, is not what we normally understand by eating". Following Spaemann, Gonzalez warned that "the development of humanity will depend on what function and meaning are articulated in our daily praxis".