Logos and Poetic Knowledge in María Zambrano

Abstract

The objective of María Zambrano was always to reclaim for thought what had been considered, since the origins of humanity, as poetry: all that exists in life and that is not addressed by science. Her themes were love, death, and human suffering. Thus, the philosopher vindicated early on her uncompromising philosophical calling to think on the basis of a logos that she termed poetic reason. With this, she sought a different way of thinking that was neither theory nor system, where thought could have minimal abstraction and generality. She opted for a form of fragmentary knowledge that did not systematise or categorise life, defending and legitimising the cognitive capacity of experiential knowledge found in literary writing where analogy, imagery, and metaphor predominate. The article presents Zambrano's thought in its connections with epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics. It addresses the possibility of a symbolic pedagogy that finds in sensibility and poetry the power to configure a horizon of human hope.