José Gil

Portuguese philosopher and essayist, born in 1939, in Mozambique. He studied Mathematics at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon.  He moved to Paris and enrolled in Philosophy, graduating in 1968, at the Paris Faculty of Languages.  The following year, he finished his Master’s degree, with a thesis on Kant’s moral, and in 1982 he finished his PhD with Corpo, Espaço e Poder, published as a book in 1988. He taught philosophy at a high-school level from 1965 to 1973. He coordinated de Philosophy and Psychoanalysis Department at the University of Paris VIII. In 1976, he returned to Portugal to assist the Secretary of State for Higher Education and Scientific Research. He was a Programming Director for the Collége International de Philosophie de Paris and a professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities of the New University of Lisbon until 2010, where he taught Aesthetics and Contemporary Philosophy. He has written a vast essayistic work about, among other topics, Fernando Pessoa’s poetry (Fernando Pessoa ou a Metafísica das Sensações, 1987, O devir-eu de Fernando Pessoa, 2010, or O Espaço Interior, 1994), reflections on the body (Metamorfoses do Corpo, 1981, 1997) or mentality studies (particularly Portugal, Hoje – o Medo de Existir (2004). He has also published three fiction books (A Crucificada, Cemitério dos Desejos and Ao meio dia, os pássaros). In 2005, the Nouvel Observateur magazine included him on a list of the 25 greatest thinkers in the world. In the latest years, he has spoken in the public space, mostly within the fields of politics and education.