After publishing a few years ago A philosophy of fear, finalist for the Anagrama Essay Prize in 2021Bernat Castany Prado, philosopher and philologist, professor of literature at the UB, returns to bookstores with another delightful and highly recommended essay. A philosophy of laughterOnce again, we find an author who writes with a good rhythm, in an exuberant style, full of imagery, metaphors, and stylistic turns, yet maintains due restraint regarding the rigor of his ideas. The wit that characterizes the writing in this book is not exhausted by mere fireworks, but rather serves a way of life. Reading Professor Castany makes us better.

When Francesc Torralba (Barcelona, ​​1967) began teaching philosophy at the university, only five years older than his students. "Now I'm almost forty years older than them," he explains. "One of the changes between then and now is that I currently observe very high levels of disenchantment among students, both in the classroom and in tutorials." Torralba's new essay, Anatomy of Hope —which won the 2026 Josep Pla Prize—, stems from the unease he has observed in society in recent years, particularly affecting young people. "They are constantly bombarded with negative messages," the author continues. "They are told they will have precarious contracts, that they will never be able to buy a 60-square-meter apartment."² in Barcelona, ​​and that they will experience relationships marked by volatility." Adding to the negativity about the future is the media's portrayal of the present. "The news and newspapers tell us that both the local and global worlds are falling apart," he adds. "He has attempted suicide twice, what do I tell him?" he asks.

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With the death of dictator Francisco Franco on November 20, 1975, Catalan society awoke from a nightmare. It had long been brimming with expectations and dynamism. But until the death of leader The latent energies did not fully erupt. This was also true in the cultural world.

Marxist, environmentalist, and proponent of degrowth: these are the three pillars of the thought of Japanese philosopher Kohei Saito (Tokyo, 1987), who, thanks to essays highly critical of capitalism such as Slow down. A new way of living (2020; in Catalan in Tigre de Paper) has become best-seller —has sold over half a million copies in Japan alone— and has been translated into some twenty languages. The author recently visited the CCCB in Barcelona with a new book, Capital from scratch (Paper Tiger, 2025; translated by Lola Fígols), where he analyzes the growing discrediting of capitalist logic, puts forward some proposals to correct the present and offers an unusual look at Karl Marx's most important work, The capital

The other day I was reflecting on the strength and fragility of the human being, or rather, the human body. Because, even for a non-believer, it's undeniable that our anatomy is absolutely marvelous. You only have to stop for a moment and observe how we function to realize what a miracle it is to be alive. We automatically breathe, self-regulate, eliminate what harms us, our heart beats regularly, and our immune system fights for us. All of this without us having to be aware of it. It's a technology so advanced that no human machine can fully match it. And all of this happens inside us, constantly, every second.

We took advantage of the heatwave and talked about philosophy.

Throughout almost six decades of awards, the Honorary Prize for Catalan Literature has distinguished narrators, poets, linguists, singer-songwriters and historians, but until now it had not recognized anyone who had dedicated his life to philosophy as Pere Lluís FontLluís's intellectual contribution has been deployed, broadly speaking, on four levels: university teaching, translation, publishing, and writing. "To think is to rethink." "Catalonia and philosophy have been my two passions." "We are monolingual, but it suits us to be polyglots." These have been three of the award winner's mottos throughout his long and fruitful career.

"Philosophy has two main motives: to be outraged at transforming the world and to marvel at perseverance." The phrase uttered by Begoña Roman, a doctor of philosophy and professor at the University of Barcelona (UB), is a good example of why, on a Monday afternoon, nearly 100 people gathered at the Ateneu Barcelonès with a clear objective: to restore the prestige of philosophy in Catalan education. "It's no longer a professional issue but a national issue. The problem is that we live in a short-termist way. We don't plan for the future, but only for today," criticized philosophy professor Ramon Moix.

At the exhibition In the moved air... French philosopher and art historian Georges Didi-Huberman (Saint-Étienne, 1953) proposes taking a critical step back and stopping to read, allowing images to move us, but also to ask us questions. He does this by following in the footsteps of some of Lorca's verses and through three hundred works by artists such as Goya, Dalí, Giacometti, Miró, Picasso, Colita, and Rodin. The exhibition, which begins and ends with the gaze of children, is a co-production of the CCCB, where it can be seen until September 28, and the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid, where he was present last year. Didi-Huberman has a long body of work dedicated to the uses and meanings of images and has never tiptoed around some highly controversial topics.. Among his works are: Images despite everything (2004; Images despite everything: visual memory of the Holocaust in the Spanish edition of Paidós), When images take position (2008; When images take position to Antonio Machado Books) and Passer, what is the cost? (2017; Pass, whatever the cost in Shangrila)

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.

"In the age of machines, perhaps we should think about this: humans know things and so do machines, but they don't know them the way humans know them, although, depending on how, they know them better. The fact is that it's not just what is known that's important, but also how it is known," wrote philosopher Josep Maria Terricabras in his book Dare to think, published in 1998. Artificial intelligence was not yet being discussed, but the thinker was already advocating the need for tools and aids to think better and reflected on the "usefulness of rigorous thinking in everyday life," as the book's subtitle stated. It was this book that inspired the awards named after Manel Xifra Boada, founder of Comexi, one of the largest companies in Catalonia, a world leader in the flexographic printing machinery construction sector, which today exports 90% of its production, with an annual turnover of more than 100 million euros.

Marina Garcés (Barcelona, ​​​​1973) says that the first impact of a strange friendship is the film ET., which she saw when she was nine years old. "It radically raises the question of where unconditional love lies with a different being, in this case so bizarre that it's literally extraterrestrial." A friendship between a child and a chili pepper from another planet confronts you with a question: what does it mean to love unconditionally? This is one of the questions the Catalan philosopher poses. in his latest book, The passion of strangers (Galaxia Gutenberg).

I recently asked Ferran Sáez about his relationship with spirituality, and he pointed to an inconspicuous window located high above the room we were in. It was a gray day, natural light weakening against the artificial, and on the windowsill was a sparrow taking advantage of the building's shapes to shelter from the rain. "I could put a barrier between what we're doing here and that sparrow, between me and the world, but I choose not to," he said. We were in an auditorium at the Casa de Convalescencia, a jewel of Catalan Baroque civil architecture that serves as the headquarters for the Institut d'Estudis Catalans, at the end of a symposium dedicated to celebrating Sáez as a "contemporary classic" and deepening our understanding of his work. After four hours of academic presentations, on the periphery of a bubble of human achievement, the rest of the world continued to spin with a labored and calm indifference. It's one of those images that makes you look at yourself from the outside, and in that shift in perspective, you consider the possibility that there's something genuinely important beyond yourself.

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.

Knowing what truth and lies mean in a world invaded by fake news. Understanding that "generalizations are often fallacies" at a time when many are talking too loudly. And engaging in dialogue in a divided world. "Understanding that polarization is avoided when you can tolerate disagreeing with your friend and still be their friend." Philosophy teachers argue that the subject they teach goes far beyond the myths and theories of the classics. It allows students to "think," "doubt," "self-criticize," and "question everything." These values and lessons they believe are "fundamental" in today's society and that adolescents cannot properly acquire because they dedicate too few hours to it. "We need time to think," says Laia Cos, who acts as a spokesperson for these teachers.

Clotilde Leguil is a psychoanalyst, philosopher, professor at the Department of Psychoanalysis at the University of Paris 8. She has written The age of toxicity (NED Editions), an essay that addresses the new malaise in civilization.