Francesc Eiximenis (Girona, 1330 - Perpignan, 1409), one of the most widely read medieval writers: among his readers were kings such as Martí l'Humà. Valentí Almirall (Barcelona, ​​1841-1904), a left-wing Catalanist. Josep Pallach (Figueres, 1920 - L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, 1977), politician and educator, member of the POUM and the CNT. Or the writer and feminist activist Maria Aurèlia Campmany (Barcelona, ​​1918 - 1991). These are some of the thirty authors that form part of the collection. Catalan classics of political thought. Co-published by the Institut Ramon Llull and the Institute for Self-Government Studies of the Generalitat (Catalan Government), the collection aims to make the texts of Catalan political and legal thought from the Middle Ages to the 20th century available to readers around the world. In Catalan and English, the words of all these thinkers will be accompanied by an introductory text by Catalan and international academics who will put the thought of each one into context.

It's surprising how easily, especially in the world of culture, works of all kinds are presented that claim to be groundbreaking, that seek to eliminate prejudices and break down stereotypes, or that boast of expressing themselves "without filters." It's a pretension that's somewhere between naive, very naive, and arrogant, ridiculously arrogant. Two unforgivable vices in culture because naiveté demonstrates ignorance, and arrogance masks a lack of lucidity that leads to self-deception or, worse, the desire to deceive others.

In a world dominated by immediacy and superficiality, where misinformation is the order of the day and social media forces us to be connected at all hours, thinking becomes almost an act of vindication. Finding a space for criticism and reflection is more necessary than ever, or at least this is what Danish philosopher Svend Brinkmann, author of the book Think (Think, Koan, 2025), which comes a year after its success The joy of missing out (The joy of missing out, Koan, 2024) in which he reflected on FOMO and the fear of always missing out on shots that are supposedly better than yours.

It's pouring rain, just when you think it's over again, the never-ending story—first as tragedy, then as farce—and we're back at the top of the heap. Or to put it another way: Sisyphus in the race after the stone that goes up and down and never stops rolling, but in this case only down and never up. I say this because Catalonia has been the country with the least emphasis on philosophy in the educational curriculum for a long time, blow after blow. And if we've been here for so long, it means we've been in a worse place for years. From the school of freedom, it's always urgent to think—against those who only want us to be subjects, consumers, spectators, and users—and rethink everything. Because if today, for example, is April 25th—with Valencian roots, a Portuguese soul, and an Italian partisan spirit—we will have to consider why we have the Valencian Country we have, what has become of the democratic revolution of the carnations fifty years later, and how the hell we ended up in the sinister state of Liberation with Meloni governing Italy. It makes us think—not so much. Because they have also been inviting, inciting, and clumsily modulating us to stop doing so for too long.

Ten years ago Carles Capdevila interviewed The German philosopher and sociologist Axel Honneth (Essen, 1949) in his series for ARA Domingo on the world to come. A disciple of Habermas, Honneth then directed the Frankfurt School and placed the three emergencies of the moment in uncontrolled capitalism, globalization, and religiously linked revolts against the West. A decade later, in a world with new emergencies, Honneth visited Girona for the first time this week. invited by the Ferrater Mora Chair of Contemporary Thought, where he gave four lectures in the lecture hall of the UdG under the title Escaping Oppression: Different Variations of Social ResistanceHe currently lives between Frankfurt, where he is a professor of social philosophy at Goethe University, and New York, where he has also taught in the Philosophy Department at Columbia University since 2011.

"A cold house is not a home: it looks like one, but it isn't," he recalled. Josep Maria Esquirol (San Juan de Mediona, 1963) in the third session of the Dialogues on Ethics and Moral Philosophy held at the Pedralbes Monastery, co-organized by Barcelona City Council and the newspaper ARA and curated by philosopher and essayist Daniel Gamper. The series has so far featured the participation of Victoria Camps, Remedios Zafra and Josep Maria Esquirol, professor of philosophy at the University of Barcelona and author of essays such as Intimate resistance (2015), More human human (2021) and The school of the soul (2024).

In the middle of Girona's Mercadal neighborhood lies the entrance to the city's largest Masonic lodge: the Canigó workshop. Anyone expecting an opulent space, reminiscent of an American movie, will be disappointed. What might appear to be the entrance to a dark warehouse overlooking a block courtyard has, for almost three decades, been the place where some twenty fellow Masons have gathered every two weeks to hold their meetings. These are the rituals they share in the temple, an enclosed space—without windows—full of symbolism that may be surprising at first glance.

Pere Lluís Font (Pujalt, 1934), historian of philosophy, at the age of 91 maintains an enviable lucidity and intellectual vitality. A teacher of several generations of philosophers, he has just published the Catalan translation of the Essential poems (Excerpt) by Saint John of the Cross, which have a mystical and erotic interpretation. And he concludes the essay Philosophy in nature (UB), "a text that is not at all emphatic, without makeup or rhetoric", like three of the great authors who have always accompanied him: Montaigne, Descartes and Pascal. In fact, his last major contribution (2021) has been the monumental translation into Catalan of the Thoughts Pascal, winner of the National Translation Prize and the Catalan PEN Club Prize.

Judith Butler is an activist who revolutionised gender theory and turned feminism upside down three decades ago with Gender Trouble (1990). She always places equality at the centre. She does not make distinctions, because she defends that all lives are worth the same and this is what the political imaginary should pick up. Butler has come to Barcelona to receive the 33rd International Catalonia Prize, awarded for "her civic and political commitment to combat all types of violence that condition the lives of certain groups". Hours before, she gave this interview to ARA. She looks fragile but grows when he speaks. She has a sly smile and practices what she preaches about the importance of taking care of each other. She cares about all of us who are there for this interview