Luther, Kant and St. John Henry Newman Despite not being an extroverted person, a life rich in years has brought me some memorable friendships, which the fragility of existence has cut short sooner than I wanted and needed.
Alejandro's was one of those that left the deepest mark, so much so that time and time again episodes that I lived with him come to mind, his sayings that remain indelible, teachings that I owe him and help me, for example now, in the trance of feeling his departure as an emptiness impossible to fill. He also remembered phrases that he had heard from his friend and teacher Florentino Pérez Embid, one of which comes to me now like a ring to my finger: "Disengage, Alejandrito: here we are only leaving the waste of tienta...". For those who are not bullfighters, I would like to point out that this is the name given to the cattle that the breeder does not consider suitable for bullfighting after having "tempted" them.
One also feels quite "tentative" in comparison with the great personalities he has known and with their "great deeds" as well as with so many "small gestures", such as that cordiality, that joy, those witticisms, those conversations that at the time may have seemed trivial, but that now have become precious experiences lost... forever? The memory clings to them, but our retentiveness is also fallible and is unraveling in shreds, as Alexander himself had to suffer in his own spirit, a pain that he was able to bear with admirable fortitude. There are experiences that not even the worst gale can sweep away. I would like to highlight that morning in Madrid, more than ten years ago, at the door of the place where I was going to have one of our seminars, when he told me out of the blue: "Juan, I have been diagnosed with a Alzheimer's." I was so stunned that I didn't know what to say or do, except to give him a very strong hug, I think the first and last one between us in so many years of camaraderie.
The distances
It has been, in fact, a very peculiar feature of this relationship: we have always kept our distance, we have not been lavish in confidences, we have never finished opening our hearts to each other. Probably because of a question of temperament, but above all because we did not need to. Throughout our lives we have always been close, but without ever touching each other: I passed from the University of Navarra to Seville just as he was arriving in Navarrensis from Valencia.
We both did the thesis on Kant; but he devoted a very special (and original) attention to the "Opus postumum"., while for my part I stuck to the pre-critical stage. We were both interested in the problem of knowledge, but in his case he approached it from metaphysics; in mine, from the philosophy of nature. There were many fields in which we converged, but without overlapping. Since he was superior to me in "age, dignity and government", I was his complementary rather than his disciple: he knew many things and possessed abilities that I would have liked to know and have. For his part, he would not have been displeased to get a little more familiarity with mathematics and natural science, as he rather liberally judged me to be.
Undoubtedly, I was luckier than he was in some academic endeavors and, above all, much more willing to devote myself to what I liked instead of what I "had to" do. His generosity was so great that, instead of feeling hurt, he was filled with satisfaction to see in this and other cases that a friend had achieved noble ambitions that were denied to him. In short, his figure sometimes reminds me of James Stewart in the movie "It's a Wonderful Life".
Alejandro Llano's commitment
Alejandro Llano conceived existence first and foremost as a commitment, and he set all his priorities accordingly. In this sense he had a fundamentally ethical personality, without discarding the hedonic dimensions, otherwise centered on the intellectual: he enjoyed study and devoted himself to it with the passion of one who conceives of no greater pleasure than the discovery of truth. In other words, he was a philosopher through and through. A whole day reading stimulating texts, taking notes, advancing a research, drew for him the horizon of earthly happiness, a foretaste of another fuller happiness towards which his serene religiosity pointed.
I remember that around 1983 we shared a summer of work in the old humanities library in Pamplona. Our tables were close to each other: I was working on the translation of Kant's "Living Forces" and he was busy writing the book "Metaphysics and Language".. It was scorching hot and there was no air conditioning. My spirits began to flag and I often thought of sending everything for a walk and fleeing to the nearest swimming pool. But there he was, unbowed, undaunted, diving into the sea of ideas, refreshing himself with the breath of the great thinkers and seasoning the pauses with notes of the finest humor. Other considerations were unnecessary: I discarded the idea of throwing in the towel and at the end of August I returned home with the translation done.
In addition to being a scholar, a pure intellectual, Alejandro possessed a great capacity for leadership. He was a man who did not drag people along by means of orders or slogans, but by example, with an enthusiasm that was contagious. His style of command made me think of those infantry officers who are the first to jump out of the trench and who do not need to look back to make sure that the soldiers will follow him as one man.
I suppose -although I did not know him at that time- that the years when he was the director of a college in Valencia were the ones that went best with his charisma, because he knew how to transmit without much talk the passion for a job well done, for the effort assumed as a joyful challenge. He managed to make you forget the obligatory nature of this or that task; rather, he showed it to you as an exciting opportunity, through a change of perspective that gave you the key to a successful life.
The life project
Youthful leadership and passion for work: with these points of support Alexander designed a vital project that confronted Christian truth with the thought of late modernity and the confused contemporaneity. The latest derivations of kantism, the attempts to reconstruct a realistic metaphysics, the linguistic turn, analytic philosophy, the philosophy of action, the new developments in the philosophy of religion, post-metaphysical thought, were only some of the most relevant milestones of this journey, in each of which he has left a rich harvest of publications, doctoral theses and research projects carried out by his own hand or by his disciples and friends. Thus, one of the most important chapters of recent Spanish and Latin American philosophy has been written.
I participated in some of these ventures along with Lourdes Flamarique, José María Torralba, Marcela García, Amalia Quevedo, Rafael Llano and so many other collaborators of the undisputed animator of the group. My role was subordinate, as I have never been good at joining a team, not even one as "sui generis" and decentralized as the one inspired by our friend. The main difference of nuance, on the other hand, is that in Alejandro's case the Christian worldview was somehow at the starting point and was a sure reference, while in my own case it was rather an object of search and a port I hoped to reach.
Neither he nor I were very explicit about this capital matter, until one day, as if in passing, I told him that, after a "small lapse" of 40 years, I had returned to the sacramental practice of the faith that my parents had passed on to me. With similar discretion, he had told me that, although he was now older, he had been encouraged to try to obtain a doctorate in theology, without excluding that this could end up modifying his dedication from the outside, because inside it would not mean any serious alteration.
Magnificent Rector
As I have already indicated in passing, the personal and institutional aspects of Alejandro's life and person formed a very solid unity. Professionally, the dual vocation of teacher and researcher was enough to fulfill a dedication that met the highest standards and pursued the most ambitious goals. This did not prevent him, after joining the faculty of the University of Navarra, from opening a new front that added increasing demands: the responsibilities of department head, section director, dean and, finally, magnificent rector!
Undoubtedly, he had ample management capacity to assume all those tasks. In fact, his performance brought the organizations he governed to the zenith of their trajectory. And the times he had to deal with were not easy to manage, due to the growing hostility of the external environment and the internal effervescence of those under his administration. Universities are very sensitive barometers to the changing signs of the times and Spanish society suffered a general crisis of beliefs, values and loyalties while Llano was in charge of Navarra.
The fact is that, just as Cincinnatus was torn again and again from his rural estates to assume the highest magistracies, Llano had to accept the regency of the institution he served, in addition to resolving as a consultant the serious questions that were submitted to him time and again. The difference with the Roman patrician lies in the fact that, while the former left the agricultural implements to rest while he was busy saving the homeland, Alexander continued with his work, with his books, with his doctoral students, even with his classes as much as possible...
The secret of the University of Navarra
This time I had a front row seat to the performance of this philosopher called, as Plato recommended, to the government of the polis.. He got down to work with the fervor and ease with which we were already familiar. I remember visiting him those first days in his brand new office. I started to browse around like a child who gets entangled with the things of the grown-ups. On one of the shelves I found a thick, luxuriously bound volume, the cover of which read: "The secret of the University of Navarra" or something similar. Amused by my indiscretion, he said, "I don't know what it is. Open it..." I did. It was actually a box and inside we discovered... a big crucifix! Alejandro remarked: "What a relief! I was afraid we were going to find a bottle of cognac or something like that... It must have been Alfonso Nieto's idea..." Nieto had been the previous rector.
The new head of the company immediately went into overdrive. Some have said that rather than being the rector of ideas, he turned out to be the rector of bricks, due to the quantity (and quality) of the buildings he constructed. But he did not neglect the other front at all; what happens is that the wind carries away very easily not so much the words we pronounce as those we should hear, because they enter us through one ear and leave us through the other. That is the tragic fate of philosophers, but we are more or less used to it... and resigned. After all, our task is not to transform the world, but to study it and, as far as possible, to explain it.
At that time there were speeches by Rector Llano even in the videos that were projected in the waiting rooms of the University Clinic. I remember once when I attended with José Antonio Millán a conference he gave on educational ideals or whatever. The idea that I was thinking about was that there are universities that inform, but, at least his own, was also determined to form. When he finished and after the ensuing applause José Antonio, whose fine skepticism is as frightening as it is healthy, approached him to ask with pseudo-ingenuous intonation, "Alejandro, do you really think that in this university people are trained?" The questioned replied without losing his poise or allowing himself to be cowed, "Of course I do, j....! Don't be Jaimito!"
I do not have much experience in how rectors usually behave, but certainly in the case of Llano there was 100 % of commitment and 0 % of conceit. In fact, he put so much meat on the grill that he risked his health and ended up losing it. His dynamism and hard work were based on a delicate physical foundation. The pace of work was clearly excessive, but what really made him suffer was the concern for the people who distanced themselves from him and all that he represented without him being able to do anything effective to remedy it. This is mere speculation on my part, because he was always very discreet in the conversations we had. When he went to Pamplona he used to invite me to lunch, to talk about projects rather than problems and also -I believe- to be able to skip a little the strict dietary regime he was subjected to because of his heart problems. He hated vegetables in his diet and almost always asked for "cabrito" (kid)., choice that he initialed with the following apostille: "This way there will be one less...".
His administration was prodigal in results and also in intimate suffering. Finally, the longed-for liberation arrived. Years later, he showed me a photo in which he appeared welcoming the great chancellor at the main door of the central building, who was leaning towards him to tell him something. He commented: "At that very moment he confirmed to me that he was going to be relieved. It has been one of the happiest moments of my life." So, without any regrets, he left the office, the official car, the chauffeur and the bodyguard (those were the hard times of terrorism). The first day he took the Villavesa again (that is, the urban bus line of Pamplona) he met his predecessor in office, who immediately recited to him the well-known verses of Zorrilla: "Yo a los palacios subí... / yo a las cabañas bajé..."
The resignation
In spite of the scars that years and works had left on him, producing sequels that little by little would show all their seriousness, Alejandro did not disappoint us and immediately resumed his life as a scholar, writer and university teacher. In addition to numerous works of philosophical substance, he gave us those exciting memoirs in two volumes and a thrilling book of conversations with his most chosen disciples. They are pearls that in some way represent the swan song of the great philosopher and even better person.
All the talents that God gave us must be willing to return them with the consequent returns, and for an intellectual like Alexander, no renunciation can be more painful and meritorious than that of seeing his memory and capacity for reasoning decay without remedy. He saw this loss coming from afar, with full lucidity and acceptance, manifesting once again the temper of his Christianity. Gradually he returned to his first innocence. I visited him from time to time, thanks to the good offices of Lourdes Flamarique. Many colleagues and friends would ask me afterwards: "Did he recognize you?" I used to reply: "I didn't have the bad taste to ask him, but he certainly retains all the human warmth that has always characterized him. Lourdes and I carry the weight of the conversation in which he integrates himself quite naturally. We reminisce about old times and look forward to the future with optimism.
The hope
One of the great advantages of being a Christian is that one is absolutely certain that, indeed, the best is yet to come. With regard to the past, what has been truly worthwhile of it survives as living history. Not that I myself have much hope of still being read when I am gone. I even believe that little more than that I will outlive my own work. It would weigh more heavily on me the idea that so many good times, so many happy moments, so many examples of dignity and kindness such as those we enjoyed with Alejandro, those of us who were close to him at one time or another, could have irremissibly vanished into oblivion: like when he used to tell us the story that Elizabeth Anscombe told him about the final conversion of Wittgenstein, or when he wore a beret up to his eyebrows and -using a guitar as a tam-tam- intoned a telluric Asturian song about cheeses that went to and from his hórreo, or when he got into an argument with Rafa Alvira about some point of political philosophy, or when in the middle of an academic conference he would jump off his motorcycle and say once and for all what he thought about the matter...
Was it really all just a dream? Christian hope, which I have partly recovered thanks to him, makes me trust that I will see God. Will all the anecdotes of my life then dissolve into nothingness? I suppose that whoever has the joy of being before Him, will also have access, in one way or another, to His Memory. And, as certified by the inspired verses of a supposed agnostic, Jorge Luis Borges:
"Only one thing there is not. It is oblivion.
God, who saves the metal, saves the dross
And He numbers in His prophetic memory
The moons that will be and the moons that have been."
There are biographies that, like the one we are celebrating, constitute, with their lights and shadows, authentic works of art. The prospect that not even the smallest detail of them will be lost forever is very joyful. Too joyful not to be true.
