Philosophical Anthropology in the unpublished writings of Luis Felipe Alarco Larraburre

The idea of ​​this research was conceived in the middle of 2011, and is referred to The Metaphysical in the philosophy of Luis Felipe Alarco. As part of the investigation, two daughters of Dr. Alarco were interviewed. Later, the son, Dr. Claudio AlarcoVonPerfall, stated that they guarded an archive of different typewritten texts, manuscripts, and other texts written in digital format by Dr. Luis Felipe AlarcoLarraburre. According to the narration of his children, Dr. Alarco was interested in writing a book related to philosophical anthropology, specifically on the issues of the human being: his essence, his condition as being-in-the-world, his potentialities as knowledge , the power, the task; his attitude towards death, and finally the two possibilities before the end of his life: nothing or immortality, the path as being for nothing or being for transcendence.
These texts were never fully organized, and due to eventual discouragement for various reasons and the difficulties of personal health, Dr. Alarco never finished said work. In that sense, his notes were disorganized when death embraced him.
The texts were repetitive, they dealt with various topics, all referring to man. No title was found for the work that the San Marcos master was working on. But there is a theme common to all the texts: «philosophical anthropology». In this regard, the questions that arise are why the interest in Dr. Alarco? What contributions did he want to offer him? According to the children, apparently a friend of Dr. Alarco during his stay in France discouraged him from continuing with this project, because in the academic environment other topics were in fashion: epistemology, philosophy of value, etc.
The aforementioned theme also entails another difficulty, since reflection on man implies elaborating a scheme where territories of knowledge are integrated whose borders are mobile in terms of content, their relations with other knowledge, a language that tries to be common to all, and the characteristics of its objects.
It would not be the first time that Dr. Alarco has undertaken such large-scale projects. The initial question with which this investigation began was: what is man for Luis Felipe Alarco? However, the thought of the San Marcos master has been diverting the question of "what" to the essential question: "Who is man?".

The answer will be sought in a set of unpublished texts and posthumous material, and will be contrasted with the published works –during life– of the author and other philosophers who have appeared in history. The main obstacle in relation to this topic is the little research in our environment.
The title: «philosophical anthropology» is granted by the present researcher, that is, it is not Luis Felipe Alarco who baptized his work in this way. The title has been chosen because it is the most general possible, capable of encompassing the different aspects of the reflection of the San Marcos master regarding man himself.

The general objective of this research will be to carry out the study and analysis of the posthumous work on Philosophical Anthropology of the San Marco teacher Luis Felipe AlarcoLarraburre exposing his ideas about "the essence of man", evidencing the inspiring sources: bibliographic and philosophical, and critically evaluating these ideas. , in order to find a possible validity of the same in our present time.
To achieve this objective, the unpublished written material of the master Alarco, guarded by his son, Claudio AlarcoVonPerfall, has been accessed in such a way that it is organized in the light of the previous mental schemes developed in his published works and to be able to carry out a critical analysis of your ideas. It should be noted that the set of unpublished texts has not yet been published, however, they have been compiled and systematized by themes and paragraphs, duly codified, all of which will appear in the Annex to this research.
The way of citing unpublished or posthumous texts will include the last name in parentheses, followed by a comma, the topic addressed will be stated in Roman numerals, and the paragraph of the text in the Annex will be presented in Arabic numerals.
Likewise, in this publication the following tasks will be carried out in order to achieve this great objective:
1. Identify the main ideas about the essence of man in the posthumous work Philosophical Anthropology by Luis Felipe Alarco: the being of man, the self, the who and existence.
2. Compare the main ideas of philosophical anthropology in Alarco's posthumous work with other ideas expressed in the published works of the same author.
3. Explore coincidences and parallels in some of the most representative philosophers, as bibliographic sources or sources of inspiration for the anthropological reflection of Luis Felipe Alarco.
4. Reflect from the condition of modern man on the contributions in philosophical anthropology of Luis Felipe Alarco.
Why is this research being undertaken? What are the grounds that justify this task? One of the reasons why this research has been chosen is that today's world is submerged –and not infrequently dragged along– by a series of currents of thought, a series of technological advances and by a marked increase in access to information. , but at the same time, it drowns in misinformation due to excess or lack of discernment. Everything seems to be resolved and answered in the market and with money. Reinforced by the scientific and cultural verification of human limits regarding the knowledge of reality, the idea emerges that there are no absolute or supreme truths, since each one adapts the truth to himself.
However, modern anti-metaphysical and anti-anthropological axioms seem to have forgotten that ancient sentence: "all men die"; no one escapes this law.
Being submerged in the contingent, aspectual and temporal, human beings also see our identity lost. What are we? About us? Why do we exist? What do we live for? If there is no truth, no answer will be found either. Thus, the old question about the meaning of being that Heidegger defended seems to be transformed into the question about the meaning of being of man and at the same time about the meaning of his existence.
Even so, death is a unique and definitive event, from which we cannot escape, even if we exhaust efforts in it. It arrives in the most unexpected way and surprises from the roots. Thinking of her usually calls to the terror of the vulgar and the anguish of the wise. It is not a “fashionable” topic for contemporary man. Man dies, and in this dying there is the possibility that he will totally disappear or that something of him will continue to exist. Faced with the imminence of death, the question about oneself emerges.
A succinct look at our reality shows that modern man seems to have lost the meaning of things and of his own existence. The apparent prevails, entertainment attracts and monopolizes. There are no statements of his own existence. Television is brutal. Do we have to wait until we are at death's door to reflect on the closest and most distant subject at the same time: oneself?

3.689 / 5.000   Resultados de traducción San Marcos teacher Luis Felipe Alarco developed a philosophical anthropology with a strong metaphysical charge, rooted in existential problems, where he privileged the event of death as one of the most important and worth analyzing. His proposal, based on a "new metaphysics rooted in reality" finds a privileged place in the human being, thus seeking to base many of the activities of human life and give meaning to three dimensions: a) the essence of man; b) the existence of it: knowledge, power and doing; and c) transcendence: death and immortality. The importance of this work lies in the fact that it brings to light a series of ideas and reflections on philosophical anthropology developed by an illustrious teacher from San Marcos, which have been guarded over time and could have been lost. This work also values ​​the thought and work of those who, faced with a reality absorbed by doctrines of various kinds that did not satisfy the anthropological question about life and the meaning of human existence, decided to bet on a corpusphilosophicum that sought to find said meaning in the analysis of human existence and the event of death with the two possibilities that arise from it: nothingness or immortality. Following this line, the contribution of this research is that it will reflect on the condition of modern man from the contributions in philosophical anthropology of Luis Felipe Alarco, a topic addressed by various knowledge and research, but at the same time, an inexhaustible topic due to the complexity of the matter, the same man. Bringing to light the ideas of a deceased San Marcos teacher, evidencing some of his philosophical contributions, will allow the increase of the valuation of the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos as alma mater, forger of great thinkers, at the same time it will give a contribution more in the increase of the history of ideas in Peru, and will allow obtaining some fundamental anthropological notions that serve as a basis for the development of the disciplines and knowledge of the human sciences. Finally, this research will serve as a complement to understand the philosophical thought of a San Marcos teacher, a precedent for new research, motivation in the achievement of future research in the field of the history of ideas in Peru. The hypotheses to be tested in this research are: H1: The notions about the essence of man in Luis Felipe Alarco's posthumous work on philosophical anthropology are very valuable for the history of philosophy and ideas in Peru, maintaining validity in today's man. H2: The philosophical anthropology developed in Alarco's posthumous work provides elementary principles to approach the knowledge and understanding of the problem of being, the essence and the existence of modern man. At the methodological level, the steps of the methodology evidenced in Alarco's published works will be followed. We will proceed with the reading and compilation of the texts and notes –first-hand– “unpublished”, delivered by the family. Then we will proceed with the identification of various thematic axes on philosophical anthropology and the organization according to these central lines of the material, dividing it into chapters and subchapters. The direct analysis of the texts will be carried out, carrying out a careful reading, the precision of the terms used according to different authors and specialists, the comparison with other philosophical readings or with the ideas expressed by other specialist and recognized thinkers.

After the comparison of parallel texts, we will proceed to investigate the interpretations and comments of specialists on these parallel readings.
Finally, a contrast will be made with the next reality of our environment to draw conclusions. In this way, the bibliographic compilation, the signing, the paraphrasing, the summary, the synthesis and the hermeneutics will be developed.
To build knowledge about man, the limits of the possibilities of knowledge of man himself must be taken into account. For this reason, an ordering of ideas will be carried out, in an articulated and manageable sequence of some aspects of the plurality of incomprehensible knowledge in a certain sense. To this end, for the critical analysis, three axes will be taken into consideration as fundamental coordinates: ordinary language, positive sciences (natural, human and social) and philosophy.
In this way, following Heidegger and other phenomenologists, an elliptical treatment of the theme will be carried out: forward and backward; in which a thought is addressed and perhaps then it is returned to, again and again, not by repetition of ideas, but because in that advance the San Marcos teacher returns again and again, glimpsing other edges of the problem and finding other contributions or clarification of the problem already addressed before.
This research consists of five chapters. In the first, a biographical sketch of the San Marcos thinker will be presented; A brief introduction to his philosophy based on his published works will also be presented, and finally the notions of Philosophical Anthropology will be pointed out.

The body of the analysis of the unpublished texts will be exposed in the following three chapters. The second chapter will develop the reflections on the essence of the human, its actualization in the human existence, and the mystery of the being of man, with those irrational loopholes that prevent clarity in any investigation referred to it. Finally, the problem of "who" will be addressed.
The third chapter, on human existence, will address the issue of man as a being who "is" in the world. From this "being" the "being" becomes evident. The being of man as "being in the world" will be exposed, combining the reflection of being in the world and being in the cosmos. The world is that somewhat immediate place where man is and it can be natural, invented or created.
The fourth chapter will address the conception of the transcendent and transcendence, as possibilities of human existence, as well as a problem that is always open, continuous, unsolvable, although it carries an existential meaning. On the other hand, the problem of death, as the only human security, will be addressed by evidencing Alarco's ideas about it. However, between these two themes, the theme of divinity and faith is poured, as links that articulate one with the other.
The fifth and last chapter is the critical analysis. In this chapter, a brief analysis of the thesis will be carried out, on the anthropological question at present, the possible sources of Alarco will be investigated and finally the contributions and validity.
Among the difficulties presented and due to the "re-creationist" style of the great master Alarco, it is necessary, as a matter of intellectual honesty, to mention that, within the indicated references, an attempt has been made to explore and enumerate "the possible » philosophical works that Alarco may have accessed, or that inspired him, exploration based on the author's perception, and as such, limited by that very fact.
However, this limit, at the same time, could be the contribution, insofar as it is not a mere exposition –which would already be a complex work– of the thought of the San Marcos master, but rather it is an exploration of the hidden mystery, behind their experience and intellectual production. It is bringing to light the hidden, the unpublished, "the posthumous." It is to venture into the mystery of man, the mystery of a Peruvian in order to motivate readers and other San Marcos of the various specialties, so that they continue investigating the contributions of our teachers, in the process of building on what has already been built, contributing and completing, beyond "ignoring" or "criticizing" without having even tried to understand from its root, the value of the contribution of those who have walked the diverse paths of philosophy. For those of us who only crawl in this experiential attitude, it is urgent to be humble and let ourselves be helped by our intellectual predecessors.