Leonardo Polo (February 1, 1926 – February 9, 2013) was a renowned Spanish philosopher best known for his philosophical method called abandonment of the mental limit and the profound philosophical implications and results of the application of this method.
This method of detecting the mental limit in conditions such that it can be abandoned, results in a rethinking of classical and modern themes that opens up a wide range of philosophical fields. Principal among these are: (1) the act of being of the physical universe (metaphysics); (2) the quadruple con-causality (or essence) of the physical universe (philosophy of nature); (3) the act of being of the human person (transcendental anthropology); (4) the manifestation of the human person through its essence (anthropology of the human essence).
In addition to this, his works cover a wide range of fields including psychology, neuroscience, philosophy of science, philosophy of language, social ethics, political economy and business theory.
Throughout his more than forty books, Polo engaged with both Classical and Medieval thinkers such as Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, and William of Ockham, as well as Modern and Contemporary philosophers such as Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Husserl, Heidegger, and Nietzsche.
In dialogue with the great thinkers of the history of philosophy, Polo sought to further the achievements of traditional philosophy as well as rectify and correct the project of Modern philosophy.
Already during his lifetime, interest in his philosophy gave rise to numerous conferences and study workshops, including two international congresses; the publication of more than twenty books and 200 scholarly articles; dozens of doctoral dissertations; and two philosophical Journals dedicated specially to his thought.
Life
Early life (1926–1949)
Leonardo Polo was born in Madrid, February 1, 1926. He attended elementary school at the French High School (Liceo francés) of Madrid, and started his secondary education in Madrid, just as the Spanish Civil War was beginning in 1936. At this time, during the Spanish Civil War, his father held the position of Vice-mayor of the city. When the Republican government urged civilian to leave the capital city of Spain, Polo's family moved to Albacete, where he spent his first two years of secondary education. His father, a lawyer by profession, held the position of Chief Prosecutor for the city of Albacete from 1936 to 1937. At the end of the Spanish Civil War, the family returned to Madrid, except for his father, who was forced into exile, first to Nicaragua and then to Chile, where he died in 1946.
Upon the return of his family to Madrid, Leonardo Polo continued his secondary education at the Cardinal Cisneros Institute. However, the change of the 1934 plan of studies for that of 1938 forced him to repeat the second year of studies that he had already done in Albacete. During this period, he read the book Fundamental Philosophy by the Spanish philosopher Jaime Balmes. He was fifteen years old at the time. The basic idea that he drew from this work was of the importance of the first principles, that these could not just be one, and that philosophy must be understood from the point of view of these first principles (in a doctoral course about the Logos in 1995, he would say, "philosophy is the knowledge of principles by principles"). The importance given to the first principles then led him to the Summa Theologiae of Thomas Aquinas, and more specifically Question 45, which presents creation as an accidental relation. This led Polo think that Thomas Aquinas could be corrected and expanded on this point, since if creation has to do with what is first, if it is extra nihilum, if created act of being is being insofar as being, then the relation with the Creator cannot be an accident, but rather a relation of principles. Polo would later make numerous references to Aquinas in his works, especially with regard to the real distinction between essence and act of being and the need to expand this distinction and apply it to the study of the human person in what Polo would eventually call a transcendental anthropology.
At school he also read Ortega y Gasset, Aquinas, and Xavier Zubiri (including the first edition of Naturaleza, Historia y Dios published in 1942). In later years, Polo would also be able to attend lectures by Zubiri on the concept in Madrid and another by Ortega y Gasset on Toynbee.