1949-1962: Philosophical Studies and the Discovery of the Mental Limit
In 1949, recently graduated, Polo started practicing law and, as he would later recount, soon had to decide between making money by doing law (something which bored him) or to follow his inclinations toward theory and research. To his uncle's great disappointment, he chose the latter, and enrolled in the doctoral program for law. Of these courses, he remembers the one given by García Valdecasas, professor of civil law, with whom he held conversations about Hegel. Upon finishing his doctoral course work, Polo was faced with the choice of doing a doctoral dissertation, but also with the problem of how to make a living during those years dedicated to research. One possibility was to seek a teaching position; and he in fact prepared for a few professorial exams even though in the end he did not pursue them.
By this time, Polo's interests were become more deeply philosophical and started to involve the development of an existential interpretation of natural right. His readings also expanded to include Hegel's Philosophy of Right, Heidegger's Being and Time, Kant's Critique of the Practical Reason, Spinoza'sEthics, as well as a number of works by Aristotle and Leibniz. It was at this time that Polo began enrolling in classes of philosophy.
In the spring of 1950, Leonardo Polo discovered what he would later call the mental limit. The detection of the limit was a clear insight that came to him all of a sudden. As he recalls: "… it suddenly occurred to me, period. I was thinking about thinking and being, and about what being had to do with thinking; then I realized that we cannot arrive at being if one does not abandon the supposition of the object, because the supposition makes the object limited and a limited knowledge cannot be a knowledge of being if this is taken in the transcendental sense."
In other words, to become aware of the mental limit and of the need to abandon it is to notice that "one cannot separate, I repeat, being from being, it is not possible to take hold of it objectively because in this way it is "des-realized"; but if being is not real, it is nothing. The intentional consideration of being is a quid pro quo. Being agrees with itself, but, being known intentionaliter is, as the Scholastics would say, an extrinsic denomination. When I know the idea, I do not in any way affect what I know, because the idea of what I know is in my mind as intelligible in act and in reality as intelligible in potency. The real distinction between essence and being makes the question all the more serious, because if being and essence were the same, then knowing something of the essence would be knowing something of being." (J. Cruz, "Filosofar hoy. Entervista con Leonardo Polo", Anuario Filosófico, Vol. XXI, 1 (1992), 46-47)
This discovery would be the initial intuition that Leonardo Polo would later develop into a methodology for doing philosophy, which he would eventually call the abandonment of the mental limit.
After two years of basic course work in philosophy, Polo received an opportunity to continue work in his research regarding the existential character of natural right with a research fellowship in Rome that he received from the Higher Council for Scientific Research (headed at that time by Alvaro D'Ors), which had just started a branch in Rome (the Spanish Juridical Institute in Rome).
In Rome he had contact with eminent jurists like Del Vecchio and Capograssi. During these years in Rome (from the end of 1952 to September 1954), Leonardo Polo continued to develop the insight that he had received in 1950. A first phase of this involved the topic of his doctoral dissertation, "The existential character of Natural Right." However, posing the topic of the existential character of law required resolving a series of more fundamental questions, many of which were related to the intuition of 1950 and which became a long introduction that eventually became a work in itself and which would lead his research away from the juridical sciences and more toward philosophy.
Polo spent these Roman years reading, thinking intensely, and, above all, writing. German philosophy, Kant and the German Romantics, as well as Hegel and Heidegger, whom he had already known in his younger years, were a major focus of his study during this time. A result of the activity in Rome is a large volume titledThe Real Distinction, which he did not publish as such, but would later serve as a staging base for later publications.
The formulations that Leonardo Polo had made with regard to his 1950 intuition began to take form through the intellectual dialogue with the Idealist philosophers and with Heidegger's existentialism. For example, Polo's reading of Heidegger and of his concern for the "existent", his critic of idealism and his philosophical approach, would lead Polo to his characterization of the human persons as "being additionally" [además]. This being additionally, which according to Polo Heidegger did not see, expresses that the human person is not limited to her thinking, nor even to her acting, but rather is additionally to thinking and action. To be additionally is "to open oneself intimately to be always constantly overflowing" (La libertad, doctoral course, Pamplona, 1990, pro manuscripto).
In 1954, Polo returned from Rome and began working at the recently founded University of Navarre, where he first taught Natural Law and then later (after the beginning of the School of Arts and Letters in 1956) Fundamentals of Philosophy and History of Philosophical Systems. At the same time, he continued his studies of philosophy at the Central University in Madrid as an external student, since his work teaching at Navarre prevented him from attending class. Technical issues forced Polo to transfer his studies to the University of Barcelona. Here he finished a short research work on Karl Marx's anthropology under the direction of Jorge Pérez Ballestar. After receiving his degree from Barcelona in 1959, Polo transferred back to Madrid for the doctoral program and began work on his doctoral dissertation with Antonio Millán-Puelles.
In 1961, Polo obtained a doctoral degree after presenting his dissertation on Descartes. In this work, he presents Descartes as a voluntarist, something uncommon at the time in Spanish academic circles, who considered Descartes more as a rationalist. This dissertation was prepared for publication and appeared under the tittle Evidencia y realidad en Descartes (Evidence and Reality in Descartes) in 1963.
By this time, Polo's interests were become more deeply philosophical and started to involve the development of an existential interpretation of natural right. His readings also expanded to include Hegel's Philosophy of Right, Heidegger's Being and Time, Kant's Critique of the Practical Reason, Spinoza'sEthics, as well as a number of works by Aristotle and Leibniz. It was at this time that Polo began enrolling in classes of philosophy.
In the spring of 1950, Leonardo Polo discovered what he would later call the mental limit. The detection of the limit was a clear insight that came to him all of a sudden. As he recalls: "… it suddenly occurred to me, period. I was thinking about thinking and being, and about what being had to do with thinking; then I realized that we cannot arrive at being if one does not abandon the supposition of the object, because the supposition makes the object limited and a limited knowledge cannot be a knowledge of being if this is taken in the transcendental sense."
In other words, to become aware of the mental limit and of the need to abandon it is to notice that "one cannot separate, I repeat, being from being, it is not possible to take hold of it objectively because in this way it is "des-realized"; but if being is not real, it is nothing. The intentional consideration of being is a quid pro quo. Being agrees with itself, but, being known intentionaliter is, as the Scholastics would say, an extrinsic denomination. When I know the idea, I do not in any way affect what I know, because the idea of what I know is in my mind as intelligible in act and in reality as intelligible in potency. The real distinction between essence and being makes the question all the more serious, because if being and essence were the same, then knowing something of the essence would be knowing something of being." (J. Cruz, "Filosofar hoy. Entervista con Leonardo Polo", Anuario Filosófico, Vol. XXI, 1 (1992), 46-47)
This discovery would be the initial intuition that Leonardo Polo would later develop into a methodology for doing philosophy, which he would eventually call the abandonment of the mental limit.
After two years of basic course work in philosophy, Polo received an opportunity to continue work in his research regarding the existential character of natural right with a research fellowship in Rome that he received from the Higher Council for Scientific Research (headed at that time by Alvaro D'Ors), which had just started a branch in Rome (the Spanish Juridical Institute in Rome).
In Rome he had contact with eminent jurists like Del Vecchio and Capograssi. During these years in Rome (from the end of 1952 to September 1954), Leonardo Polo continued to develop the insight that he had received in 1950. A first phase of this involved the topic of his doctoral dissertation, "The existential character of Natural Right." However, posing the topic of the existential character of law required resolving a series of more fundamental questions, many of which were related to the intuition of 1950 and which became a long introduction that eventually became a work in itself and which would lead his research away from the juridical sciences and more toward philosophy.
Polo spent these Roman years reading, thinking intensely, and, above all, writing. German philosophy, Kant and the German Romantics, as well as Hegel and Heidegger, whom he had already known in his younger years, were a major focus of his study during this time. A result of the activity in Rome is a large volume titledThe Real Distinction, which he did not publish as such, but would later serve as a staging base for later publications.
The formulations that Leonardo Polo had made with regard to his 1950 intuition began to take form through the intellectual dialogue with the Idealist philosophers and with Heidegger's existentialism. For example, Polo's reading of Heidegger and of his concern for the "existent", his critic of idealism and his philosophical approach, would lead Polo to his characterization of the human persons as "being additionally" [además]. This being additionally, which according to Polo Heidegger did not see, expresses that the human person is not limited to her thinking, nor even to her acting, but rather is additionally to thinking and action. To be additionally is "to open oneself intimately to be always constantly overflowing" (La libertad, doctoral course, Pamplona, 1990, pro manuscripto).
In 1954, Polo returned from Rome and began working at the recently founded University of Navarre, where he first taught Natural Law and then later (after the beginning of the School of Arts and Letters in 1956) Fundamentals of Philosophy and History of Philosophical Systems. At the same time, he continued his studies of philosophy at the Central University in Madrid as an external student, since his work teaching at Navarre prevented him from attending class. Technical issues forced Polo to transfer his studies to the University of Barcelona. Here he finished a short research work on Karl Marx's anthropology under the direction of Jorge Pérez Ballestar. After receiving his degree from Barcelona in 1959, Polo transferred back to Madrid for the doctoral program and began work on his doctoral dissertation with Antonio Millán-Puelles.
In 1961, Polo obtained a doctoral degree after presenting his dissertation on Descartes. In this work, he presents Descartes as a voluntarist, something uncommon at the time in Spanish academic circles, who considered Descartes more as a rationalist. This dissertation was prepared for publication and appeared under the tittle Evidencia y realidad en Descartes (Evidence and Reality in Descartes) in 1963.
