Journal of Catalan Intellectual History. Issue 6. 2013. P. 91-114 JOAN CUSCÓ I CLARASÓ
failure of the nineteenth century teaches us a lesson: “We know that we cannot emancipate ourselves from the ordinary; but we also know that the best of ourselves is not for sale”.59 The lecture given by d’Ors to the students’ residence in 1919 marks a turning point in his thought. If until that moment we find a defence of curiosity and of philosophy as an outgrowth of the love of life, there is now a leap forward. When the philosopher collides with reality, when the idea that he has put on reality no longer fits it, the Catalan thinker goes a step further. He raises his eyes toward the heavens, toward the mystical. At this point, he thinks of the act of death as a symbolic act that helps to understand his attitude and his task (being interred in the tomb “To Matilde” in the cemetery at Vilafranca del Penedès).60 In addition, d’Ors radicalizes the postulates of some of the authors that mark his earliest philosophical essays of 1909. These are the authors that d’Ors approached in order to obtain grants to travel through Europe and to Europeanize Catalonia. We think of Ernst Mach (who saw no abyss between the physical and the mental worlds and defended the principle of economy of thought); the postulates that d’Ors called “conceptualist” of Pierre Duhem; and, above all, the vision of the psychologist James Mark Baldwin, who held that the object of philosophy must be beauty, not truth.61 More specifically, this turning point led d’Ors to reinforce his ethical and aesthetic attitude stemming from philosophy, turning his death into an enduring symbol. At the same time, it pushed him to undertake a synthesis and systematic ordering of the entire Glosari developed up to that moment, resulting in two books: El secreto de la filosofía [Secret of Philosophy](1947) andLa ciencia de la cultura [The Science of Culture] (1964). This is the point when d’Ors came to see that the Ben Plantada is a necessary symbol, but that a counterweight was also needed (as expressed in the symbolic act of his wish to be interred at Vilafranca). He recounts this realization in La veritable història de Lídia de Cadaqués [The True Story of Lídia of Cadaqués].
59 Ibidem, pp. 69-70. 60 The decision dates back to 1917, became firm in 1932 and was formalized in 1940 when d’Ors returned to Catalonia. He was familiar with the cemetery in Vilafranca and the tomb of his ancestors and decided that that was where he wished to be buried. This symbolic act ties in well with La ben plantada and its vision of philosophy as an ethical and aesthetic commitment. See: Joan Cuscó [ed.], La ciutat dels àngels.Vilafranca del Penedès: VINSEUM, 2010.
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61 For more information on the essays written by d’Ors in pursuit of any travel grants for Europe, see: Jaume Roure, “La etapa barcelonesa de Eugenio d’Ors”, Actas del III Seminario de Historia de la Filosofía Española, Salamanca: University of Salamanca, 1982.