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| Fons especials > Fons Josep Ferrater Mora | ||||
| El Bibliotecari respon |
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| Fons especials > Fons Josep Ferrater Mora | ||||
| El Bibliotecari respon |
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The Josep Ferrater Mora Library
The Ferrater Mora Library
In January 1991 Ferrater Mora announced his decision to donate his personal library to the Estudi General of Girona, today the University of Girona (UdG). The collection consists of 7,255 volumes exploring philosophy, literature, cinema, religion, history and sociology; 156 journal titles of equally varied themes, the most important of which is philosophy; and correspondence, with 5,334 letters. In the spring of 1992 books from Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania arrived, and in the summer of that same year cataloguing was begun, coinciding with the automation of the UdG Library Catalogue and providing maximum accessibility of this donation. This accessibility means a high number of loan requests from other institutions, a fact also due to the characteristics of the collection, with first editions of the principal works in the history of philosophy and complete works of philosophers from all periods and traditions. They were collected first on Ferrater Mora's travels while exiled in Cuba and Chile, and later during his time as a professor at Bryn Mawr College beginning at the end of the 1940s. Of notable importance within the collection are the books related to philosophy, some 3,625, among which can be found dictionaries in every language, works of philosophers – from Abelard to Zubiri and including Ferrater Mora himself – and subjects such as the philosophy of knowledge, mathematical logic, the philosophy of the mind or of language, ethics, analytical philosophy, philosophical anthropology, nominalism, metaphysics, consciousness, subjectivity, relativism, pragmatism, etc. The collection is not, however, only outstanding in the field of philosophy, but also in works about language and literature - some 2,300 books, with numerous German, English, North American, French, Spanish and Catalan authors. Among the last two groups, books by Catalan and Spanish writers living and publishing in exile stand out. In smaller numbers there are also works by Portuguese, Russian and Polish authors, Greek and Latin classics, as well as studies of authors and works of literary theory and criticism. Equally significant are books about religion: atheism, theology, Buddhism or Chinese philosophy; books about sociology, law and education; almost 200 books about the history of science and mathematics, physics and geometry, books about cinema and photography and also those that deal with philosophy and the methodology of history. As for journals, the majority are philosophical (Revista Cubana de Filosofía, Revista de Filosofía, Cuadernos Uruguayos de Filosofía, Journal of the History of Philosophy, Cuadernos del Seminario de Problemas Científicos Filosóficos, Teorema, The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science or Phronesis: a Journal for Ancient Philosophy), but there are also journals about cinema (Avant-scène Cinéma, Filmmakers: Newsletter, Super 8 Filmaker or American Cinematographer), and about literature and the humanities (Lettres Françaises, Revista de Catalunya, Sur, Revista de Occidente, The Texas Quarterly or La Torre), etc. Discovered during the process of cataloguing were book notes, letters, addresses and the calling cards of those same authors, as well as annotations, clippings from newspapers and magazines with summaries, propaganda and leaflets which had been saved with a reference to the book from which they had been taken. The annotations that Ferrater Mora made in the books and the dedications drawn by his circle of friends and acquaintances are also remarkable and open doors to possible further studies. The Ferrater Mora Library can be consulted in the donations room of the University of Girona Library. Lourdes Oliva (University of Girona. Library). 1999
Josep Ferrater Mora (1912-1991)
But the importance of Ferrater's Diccionario de Filosofía is not only its enormous intrinsic interest, but also – and perhaps above all – the role it played in the evolution of the philosophical thinking of its author. In effect, the preparation of the dictionary – which he started with greater drive and ambition than he had imagined – obliged Ferrater to dive deep into the historical tradition. It was not simply a matter of offering an outline of the great tapestry of the history of philosophy, but also of tying together many of the loose threads which created the figures, the scenes and the significance of that tapestry. By delving deeply into the historical understanding of philosophy, Ferrater not only discovered a universe which at that time was still unknown in Spain, that of analytical tradition, but also conceived of one of his fundamental intuitions. The very existence of various and diverse philosophical doctrines led him to identify two basic characteristics of those same doctrines: their uncompromising and controversial nature. This intuition resulted in Ferrater's own philosophical doctrine. Fascinated with diversity, he was attracted by almost all the philosophical themes, from logic and the philosophy of science to politics, ethics or aesthetics, ontology and the theory of knowledge. Convincing proof of this fact is, among many other works, his Fundamentos de la filosofia, El ser y la muerte or De la materia a la razón. But despite this variety of interests he did not forget the importance of following a system, an "open system". From that view of diverse realities, at the same time uncompromising and understanding, Ferrater demonstrates an elegant combination of irony (not dogmatic) and rigor. His own interests – those of reality itself – demanded a method; but his method did not lead him to abstraction, to imprisonment, but rather to integration. Ferrater is unanimously considered to be the most important Spanish philosopher of the second half of the 20th century. The ripest fruit of the labour of his thoughts can be found in his De la materia a la razón, from 1979, in which he presents his system as an emerging extension at four levels: the physical, the organic, the social and the cultural. Each level emerges from the previous, without being a mere derivation of it. In his later years Ferrater wrote several novels, amplifying the technical and aesthetic foray he had carried out years before, with notable success, in the field of amateur film-making. (Translation of: Ferrater Mora, Josep. Diccionario de Filosofía. New revised edition, enlarged and updated by Josep-Maria Terricabras. Barcelona: Ariel, 1994. Volume II, pp. 1246-1247.) 
You can consult books, articles, and another materials written by
Josep Ferrater Mora in the UdG
Library Catalogue, an also, in the
University Union Catalogue of
Catalonia. Novels: Correspondence: Studies about Ferrater Mora: Revised translation of: Ferrater Mora, Josep. Diccionario de Filosofia.
ed. Josep-Maria Terricabras. Barcelona :
Ariel, 1994. Tomo II, p. 1246-1247. Many of the volumes of the Ferrater
Mora Library have been dedicated by their respective authors. Theses
dedications allow us to reconstruct the network of personal acquaintances
of the philosopher. From the entries in the
catalogue
corresponding to each one of the books, it is possible to access these
dedications, which can also be consulted independently in a
database linked to those entries.
The Ferrater Mora Chair of Contemporany Thought The
Ferrater Mora
Chair of Contemporany Thought was founded in 1989. It organizes
lessons on contemporary thought.
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