The University pays tribute to philosopher Alejandro Llano, former President the academic center

The University of Navarra held a tribute ceremony in report Professor Alejandro Llano (1943-2024), Full Professor Metaphysics and former President academic center. The event, which took place in the classroom of Central Building, was presided over by the president, María Iraburu; the dean of the School Philosophy Letters, Julia Pavón; and the director of department Philosophy, Ana Marta González.

Quoting a lecture given by Professor Llano in 2002, on the occasion of the University's 50th anniversary, the president out that the decisive question for any university institution is knowing "how to stimulate and manage the new." In this sense, she emphasized that Llano understood the university as a space of constant intellectual renewal, where knowledge people to grow inwardly and live with intellectual audacity. "Knowledge is pure novelty," she recalled, quoting his words, which invited a university life marked by "continuous renewal, permanent surprise, and uninterrupted enthusiasm."

During the ceremony, which concluded the 59th Philosophical Meetings focused on his thinking, colleagues, disciples, friends, and family remembered his intellectual and human qualities. Jaime Nubiola, Full Professor of the School Philosophy Letters and partner since the 1970s, described him as "a great academic," deeply in love with the academic institution. For Llano, he explained, the university was above all "a community of research learning, a space for cultured coexistence and respect for stafffreedom." With humor and nostalgia, he recalled his beginnings as Professor Llano's "utility man," carrying suitcases full of books for his competitive examinations. For Nubiola, meeting him was "like love at first sight" that defined his own university vocation. Llano's respect for his teachers—especially Antonio Millán-Puelles, Juan José Rodríguez Rosado, and Fernando Inciarte—and his cordiality with students and colleagues largely explain the mark he left behind. Returning to an expression that Llano himself had used in an academic lecture—"We are dwarfs on the shoulders of giants. We see more than those who came before us precisely because we do not forget them"—Professor Nubiola concluded by stating that "We do not forget Alejandro, because he was a giant on whose shoulders we stood."

The speakers agreed in highlighting the way Alejandro Llano exercised his teaching. Amalia Quevedo (University of La Sabana), representing Professor Llano's numerous "doctoral children," emphasized that one of the most characteristic features of his relationship with students was his radical respect for their freedom. "I never saw him exert the slightest pressure," she recalled. "On the contrary, he always reinforced the freedom of the interlocutor." As she explained, this attitude was even reflected in his letters and everyday conversations: "If you feel like it, if it suits you, only if you want to."

Quevedo also highlighted another surprising trait in a Full Professor his stature: the importance he placed on intellectual enjoyment. "When I worried too much about a scholarship organizing a seminar, he would respond with a phrase that dispelled all my concerns: the most important thing is that you enjoy yourself." In his opinion, this combination of freedom, joy, and generosity made Llano an uncommon teacher: "He helped us become doctors, but above all, he made us better and happier people."

For his part, Professor Juan Arana (University of Seville) highlighted his profile a philosopher of dialogue and promoter of exchange . He recalled his capacity for work his extraordinary intellectual curiosity, fueled by an insatiable passion for reading. "He read and read relentlessly," said Arana, adding that his culture was exceptional: "His mind functioned like a fertile garden that transformed the seeds planted in it into fruit." For Arana, the core topic his career was the combination of an intense intellectual life with a deep ethical and spiritual sense, which allowed him to maintain "intense and constant activity for decades."

The international dimension of his teaching was recalled by Héctor Zagal (Universidad Panamericana). In his speech, in which he recalled his arrival in Pamplona to pursue his doctorate the supervision of Professor Llano in the late 1980s, he highlighted the way in which Llano understood and encouraged Latin American students. Zagal also recalled his human warmth. On one of his first days in Pamplona, he invited him for a snack and joked about the city's weather: "The climate in Pamplona has one huge advantage: it's constant. The disadvantage is that it's always bad." Through gestures like this, he added, Llano was able to connect deeply with Hispanic American students and foster an open and magnanimous intellectual attitude among them.

Finally, his nephew Rafael Llano (Complutense University of Madrid) offered a more staff familiar portrait. He recalled how, in a family of Asturian "commercial intelligence," Alejandro's vocation was somewhat "unusual." He also evoked his professor style professor intellectual rigor but, alongside that rigor, he always emphasized his human warmth and his ability to listen. "He was one of those rare characters who, shortly after meeting them, you know will be able to listen to your most personal matters." With tenderness, he described his uncle's last years, in which "he always remained a soul amazed by the world and with a peaceful and grateful gaze."