Salvador Pániker

Philosophy and Mysticism

Original title:

Filosofía y mística. Una lectura de los griegos

About the book:

Philosophy and Mysticism

This book represents the culmination of the philosophical ideas of the author. The thread that runs through the book is the  rise and development of philosophy in Greece. Paniker explains his concepts, “retroprogression”, “critical process”, “mystic”..., all from an interdisciplinary perspective, by means of a permanent dialogue with the major trends and figures of universal philosophy.

The book will be of interest, then, both to scholars of the Greek phenomenon and to all readers concerned to interpret the signs of our modern times. What is involved is simultaneously understanding ourselves and the Greeks. What is at issue, in fact, is the articulation between the mystic and the philosophical.

Mysticism is, for Paniker, the culmination of critical reason . Mysticism is lucidity. It has nothing to do with ideological or teleological constructions. Mysticism is also of the inner world.  Mysticism overcomes the fundamental vice of humanism, the isolation of the self, since “it has to do with transcending, with escaping from the prison of the ego, and submerging oneself in something that is more important than oneself.”

Mysticism dilutes or absorbs any question one might pose on the meaning of life. In one way or another, while life continues, we all “keep standing”. The Greeks invented the most civilised way of “keeping standing”, to transcend oneself in language and in politics. And in the exercising of an unflagging curiosity. Their lesson for us is perdurable. But today we can widen the framework. “Keeping standing” is a retroprogressive pirouette, an act which is both personal and transpersonal, a balancing act in an age overseen by pluralism and the radical fragmentation of languages.” 

About the author:

Salvador Pániker is a philosopher, engineer, writer and publisher. Among his most recent works of particular interest are Asimetrías (Assymmetries); Aproximación al origen (Approach to origin), Primer testamento (First testament), Ensayos retroprogresivos (Retropressive essays) and Segunda memoria (Second memory).