María Zambrano or the submerged reason

Abstract

For Marí­a Zambrano all forms of knowledge are articulated from tradition, because what is essential is located in the past, as if it were a question of a substratum per se which is always known and transmitted. Wisdom increases by accumulation: knowledges add up, they become part of a treasure in which the contradictory is not distinguished. For the wise men of the ancient world contradiction was not important because neither the measure nor the demand for legitimacy, introduced by philosophy, existed. Tradition, for Zambrano, is the unborn knowledge which becomes past and becomes anonymous and inmemorial. Knowledge is a result which is not always acquired. One knows because one has always known, either by tradition or inheritance. Understanding, in comparison, has a purely intelectual character and thus is acquired.