Juliana González Valenzuela (Mexico, September 19, 1936) is a Mexican philosopher.
Academic biography
Juliana Gonzalez is a Mexican philosopher who has worked primarily in the areas of Greek Philosophy, Ontology, Ethics and Bioethics. She was born in Mexico City in 1936. She studied in the Faculty of Philosophy and Literature of the National Autonomous University (UNAM) where she received an ample humanistic education in philosophy, psychology, theater and history. The time she attended university was marked by an intellectual boom due mainly to the presence of the Spanish exiles that arrived in Mexico from 1939 until the end of the Spanish Civil War. They were determinant in her studies, especially the Catalan philosopher Eduardo Nicol. She became his pupil as well as a member of his Seminar on Metaphysics for over 20 years and at the same time she worked in the field of Ethics on her own philosophical inquiries.
She began her career as a professor in the Faculty of Philosophy and Literature of UNAM in 1968. She taught Greek Philosophy, Metaphysics and Ethics. She has also been a Professor in the Postgraduate Research Seminars on Metaphysics, Ethics and Bioethics. As part of her formative work she has directed 45 theses (23 in BA, 22 postgraduate). Some of her students are now researchers or professors in different Universities and education centers. She was named Professor Emeritus of the National University in 2000 and also received the distinction of Researcher Emeritus of the National System of Researchers of Mexico. She was awarded the National Award of Arts and Sciences in Philosophy in 2004, the National University Award in Research in Humanities and the Doctorate Honoris Causa of UNAM.
Parallel to her academic work, Juliana Gonzalez has held several offices at UNAM. She was the director of the Faculty of Philosophy and Literature from 1990 to 1998 and a member of the Governing Board from 1998 to 2006. She is currently the director of the Research Seminar of Ethics and Bioethics of the same university.
In April, 2021 Juliana González received the Premio Internacional Eulalio Ferrer 2020-2021 in recognition of her contributions to the humanities. She is the first woman to be awarded the prize (previous recipients include Manuel Castells, Fernando Savater, Tzvetan Todorov and Roger Bartra.)
Philosophical ideas and written works
Juliana González has published 21 books, 7 as an author and 14 as an editor. She has also written 74 chapters in books and 60 articles in magazines.
As the pupil of Eduardo Nicol, Juliana Gonzalez has dedicated numerous writings to the study of the metaphysical and humanistic works of this author. She wrote a book titled The Dialectic Metaphysics of Eduardo Nicol (1981) and edited three more: Tribute to Eduardo Nicol (1990), Eduardo Nicol. Philosophy as Symbolic Reason (1998) and Eduardo Nicol (1998) as well as writing 16 book chapters and several articles on this subject. In the work of Juliana Gonzalez, Nicol's philosophy has been a constant reference.
Her philosophical works has been centered mainly in the search for a new foundation of Ethics that can give an answer to the new knowledge and needs of our time. This research has led Juliana Gonzalez into some of the philosophical and scientific lines of thinking that have placed our conceptions of reality, life and human nature in crisis. Gonzalez has adopted the view that any historical advancement requires a return to the origins of Philosophy. From her perspective, we need a permanent dialogue with the Greek philosophers, unavoidable sources to use in order to renovate humanism and Ethics. This is especially true of Heraclitus, Socrates and Plato, authors Juliana Gonzalez has worked with in several of her books, mainly Ethics and Freedom (1989) and The Ethos, Destiny of Man (1996) and The Power of Eros: Foundations and Values in Ethics and Bioethics (2000).
From her earliest work, Juliana Gonzalez has delved in the study of the ontological issues of the being of man, freedom, time and human communication that were raised by the existentialist philosophers, especially Heidegger and Sartre, as well as the literature of the time. These studies form the basis of her Master's dissertation on Philosophy and several essays included in some of her books, markedly Ethics and Freedom. And even though she maintains a critical perspective faced with these authors, she is certain that this is the starting point for any and all future Ethics and Ontology.